Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Buxton Corporation Bill,

Colchester Corporation Bill,

Great Western Railway Bill,

The Matlocks Urban District Council Bill,

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill,

Read a Second time, and committed.

Oral Answers to Questions — LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

TRAFFIC IN WOMEN.

Colonel DAY: 1.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has now had an opportunity of reading the Report of the League of Nations Committee on the traffic in women; and can he state whether the Government are considering any further safeguards to prevent British women, especially minors, being attracted abroad by false pretences?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Captain Douglas King): I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Home Secretary. I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Acton on the 21st March. Precautions are taken as far as practicable to prevent British women being attracted abroad by false pretences. The Report referred to does not disclose grounds for anxiety so far as this country is concerned.

Colonel DAY: Is the hon. and gallant Member aware that a portion of the Report is so horrible that it has not been published yet? Will he make representations to see that the whole of the Report is published?

Captain KING: I am referring to the whole Report.

SLAVE TRAFFIC (ABYSSINIA).

Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: 2.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what action our representative to the League of Nations has taken to combat the traffic in slaves still going on in Abyssinia and elsewhere?

The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Austen Chamberlain): I would refer the hon. Member to the Reports of the British delegates to the Sixth and Seventh Assemblies of the League of Nations in September, 1925 and 1926, (Miscellaneous No. 1, 1926, Command 2576, and Miscellaneous No. 12, 1926, Command 2780).

Mr. THOMSON: Is there anything more recent?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I think not.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: Is there slave traffic going on in Abyssinia?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I must ask for notice of that question.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Does the Report say that there is slave traffic going on in China among the Chinese?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not know.

COVENANT, ARTICLE XI (REPORT).

Mr. DALTON: 7.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Report prepared by the British representative and other members of the committee of the Council of the League of Nations on Article XI of the Covenant has been published; and whether he will lay the Report as a White Paper?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The answer to both parts of the question is in the negative. The Report will be published by the League of Nations in the usual way after it has been considered by the Council.

PERMANENT COURT OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE.

Sir HARRY BRITTAIN: 8.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can inform the House of the nature of any communications with the United States Government as to any modification of the reservations in connection with their membership of the Permanent Court of International Justice?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: His Majesty's Ambassador at Washington has addressed a Note to the United States Government embodying textually the decisions reached by the League Conference held at Geneva in September last to consider the United States reservations. The minutes of this Conference have been published.

DISARMAMENT CONFERENCE.

Mr. PONSONBY: 14.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs when he proposes to make a statement with regard to the Preparative Commission for the Disarmament Conference; and what opportunity will be given to this House for discussing the work of this Commission?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I think it will be best to wait till Lord Cecil returns and is able to present a complete account of the proceedings. It would obviously be premature to make any statement at this stage when the Preparatory Committee has only just resumed its meetings.

DANUBE COMMISSION.

Mr. TAYLOR: 4.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the interest of Great Britain in Danube shipping, he can give any information as to the work of the Danube Commission; and whether the work of that body will in any way come up for consideration by the Economic Conference of the League of Nations?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Burton Chadwick): I have been asked to answer this question. There are two Commissions for the Danube; the European Commission for the maritime part of the river, and the International for the upper part. Information as to the work of these bodies is contained in a recent Report on Danube Navigation
made to the League of Nations. I cannot say whether the work of either body will be considered at the forthcoming International Economic Conference.

JERUSALEM (ITALIAN CONSULGENERAL).

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 5.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Signor Orazio Pedrassi has yet been appointed Italian Consul-General in Jerusalem; and whether, in view of his previously expressed views on British policy in Palestine, His Majesty's Government has assented to this appointment?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, Sir. His Majesty's Government do not raise any objection to this appointment.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is the right hon. Gentleman acquainted with the views of this gentleman on the British Empire and the Zionist movement?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I know something about the views he has expressed in the past, but I think I am entitled to assume that the Italian Government would not appoint a Consul-General who would use his appointment contrary to the interests of the country to which he was accredited.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHINA.

INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENT, SHANGHAI.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 6.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether negotiations have yet been opened with the Chinese Nationalist Government as to the future of the International Settlement at Shanghai; and, if so, in whose hands these negotiations are?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: No such negotiations have been opened.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Can the right hon. Gentleman state his policy on this matter? Is it intended to open up negotiations as soon as possible?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I have nothing to add to what I have said. The moment is not propitious for negotiations.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Does that mean that the right hon. Gen-
tleman's declared policy in this House a few weeks ago—to negotiate where possible—has been altered?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir. The hon. and gallant Member is asking about negotiations in regard to the International Settlement at Shanghai. There have been no such negotiations up to the present time, and the moment is not propitious for negotiations.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Am I to understand that there has been no change of policy so far as the right hon. Gentleman is concerned in connection with a pacific settlement of these troubles?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The purposes of His Majesty's Government's policy remain unchanged, but the execution of the policy must depend upon circumstances.

Mr. LOOKER: Will the right hon. Gentleman defer further negotiations in regard to the International Settlement until it is clear that the Nationalist party is not dominated by enemies of this country?

Mr. SPEAKER: The right hon. Gentleman says that there have been no negotiations.

Mr. RENNIE SMITH: 9 and 10.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) what is the property qualification for the franchise in the International Settlement at Shanghai; how plurality of votes is obtained; and how many of the ratepayers are not in enjoyment of the franchise;
(2) how many of the British ratepayers in the International Settlement at Shanghai are plural voters; what is the total number of British voters upon the register; and what numbers of ratepayers of other nationalities have plural votes?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The following persons are qualified as voters:

(1) Owners of land of not less than 500 taels in value whose annual payment of assessment on land or houses or both amounts to 10 taels; or,
(2) Householders paying on an assessed rental of not less than 500 taels per annum.
There are no plural voters. Ratepayers attending meetings may have more than
one voting ticket but such extra votes are in respect of powers of proxy held by them for absent ratepayers or for separate and distinct interests. There are no statistics as to the number of votes so held nor of the number of ratepayers not qualified to vote. The latest available figures showing the number of British voters were given in my answer to the hon. Member on 21st March.

Mr. LOOKER: 19.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has received representations from the Bar Committee at Shanghai relating to the future of the International Settlement there and to the dangers which may arise if the administration of the Settlement is taken out of foreign control?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General communicated to me the telegram which he received from the British Bar Committee at Shanghai embodying their views on these points.

Sir CLEMENT KINLOCH-COOKE: Will the right hon. Gentleman see that the policy followed at Hankow is not followed at Shanghai?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I have already dealt with the question of the situation at Shanghai, and I have nothing to add to or to change in my previous reply.

Mr. W. THORNE: Has anything been done by this Government or any other Government to put an end to the quarrel between the north and south in China?

CANTONESE GOVERNMENT (RECOGNITION).

Mr. ROBINSON: 17.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if it is proposed to recognise the Cantonese or Nationalist Government as de facto Government of Southern China?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I have nothing to add to the reply given to the hon. Member for Gateshead by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 24th March.

TIENTSIN (PROTECTION OF BRITISH NATIONALS).

Mr. LOOKER: 18.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the danger of a similar situation arising at Tientsin to that which exists in Hankow, he will state what precautions are contemplated for the protection of the British community there?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The question of what, if any, special precautions it may be necessary to adopt at Tientsin is under consideration. There are, I understand, United States, French, Japanese, Italian and British forces already there amounting to a total of 4,740 officers and men.

NANKING OUTRAGES.

Lord ERSKINE: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give the House any further information as to the attack on foreigners at Nanking?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I wish to supplement my statement of the other day by facts derived in part directly from British sources, and in part from information supplied to His Majesty's Minister at Peking by the American and Japanese-representatives.
The looting was carried out by soldiers in uniform belonging to formations under the command of General Cheng Chien. This fact is sworn to by His Majesty's Consul-General, the United States Consul and numerous responsible British and American residents. The looters were in small parties controlled by the blowing of whistles, and they were called off by bugle shortly after the firing from the meu-of-war began. The British Consulate-General was surrounded before being entered and sentries wore posted. About 30 soldiers spent the previous night in the vice-consular house, which was unoccupied at the time, and raised the revolutionary flag on the entry of the looters. Foreign women, including Mrs. Giles, the wife of His Majesty's Consul-General, were thoroughly searched and rudely stripped of valuables. Many had their clothes torn off them and two American women were saved from attempted violation. These facts can be established by sworn depositions.
I learn further that foreigners were not molested by the Northern troops nor the local inhabitants; and that the latter were friendly throughout and assisted foreigners to escape. The looting and destruction were worse than at first realised and the attack on foreigners was carefully organised. The British Consulate-General was a special objective. The consular party have lost everything and were robbed of valuables at the point of the gun, the houses were burnt after
being looted, and the furniture used for firewood. Mr. Huber, the harbour master, was killed.
The following is the treatment suffered by the Americans in Nanking:
About noon, after the murder of an American missionary and the attempted murder of many others by Nationalist soldiers, the Chinese police warned the American Consul that his party would be destroyed unless he could escape. Accordingly, his party of one officer, eleven sailors, nine civilians and two children escaped under constant fire across country to Socony House on the Standard Oil Company's hill above the city walls, where many Americans and British already were. Although repeatedly robbed and threatened by Nationalist soldiers, he, the Vice-Consul and the Standard Oil Company's manager, managed to keep them out of the house for two hours, but finally they broke in and, seeing the number of people within the house, retired and commenced firing on them in ever increasing numbers. The United States and British vessels then dropped shells immediately around the house and the party escaped over the wall.
The Nationalist soldiers deliberately fired at the United States Consul, knowing him to be such, and with intention to kill. When this happened he had just given them his card and asked to see their officer. The United States Consulate was deliberately looted, and although this was known by the Nationalist officers, no effective steps were taken to afford protection up to the time of the firing from the vessels in the river for the rescue of the party in the Standard Oil Company's house. Murder, robbery and other outrages were committed upon American and other foreigners in all parts of the city from 8 a.m. with no attempt at official restraint until after the naval barrage at 4.30 p.m. The American Consul tried all day, through the police officials and other channels, to see some responsible officer but no one would see him. From statements made to him and many other Americans by soldiers, and from the fact that the soldiers proceeded in bands whose movements were under direction, and were promptly assembled by bugle calls upon the commencement of the naval barrage, he was convinced that the
outrages were planned and could not possibly have been the result of the accidental getting out of hand of a few troops.
As regards the Japanese, the following is the position:
On the morning of 24th March about 150 soldiers belonging to the Nationalist second and sixth armies occupied the Japanese Consulate for four and a half hours. They were dressed in uniform and military caps and armed with rifles, and they started looting at once. One party attacked the offices and the residences of the staff. The other attacked the residence of the Consul who was ill in bed, and fired shots at him, at members of his staff, at a naval officer and marines and at Japanese civilians who were at the Consulate, and threatened them with bayonets. Two Japanese received bayonet wounds. The troops also molested the women. They were followed by a mob who took away everything belonging to members of the Consulate and to the civilians. A Japanese school, hotel and two private hospitals were completely looted and turned into military headquarters. The soldiers at length threatened to set fre to the Consulate. At this point the chief of the political bureau of the sixth division of the Second Nationalist Army intervened. He was followed by the commander of the sixth division, and guards were posted for the protection of the Consulate. Next afternoon the Consular party made their way to the Japanese destroyers in the river.
I have here also a sworn statement by Mrs. Giles, the wife of His Majesty's Consul-General, and by Mr. Brown, a British citizen.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman what is the next step he proposes to take in this matter? Is he making representations, has a Note been sent, or what is being done? [Interruption.] What good have your troops done?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The steps which it may be proper for His Majesty's Government and the other Governments whose citizens have thus been treated and whose flags have thus been outraged to take are under consideration.

ALBANIA.

Mr. RENNIE SMITH: 11.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if his attention has been drawn to the offer of the Foreign Minister of Yugoslavia to submit the Albanian frontier question to the investigation of the League of Nations; and whether he can see his way to support this reference to the League of Nations?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I would invite the hon. Member to refer to the answer which I gave to the hon. and gallant Member for South Hackney on 23rd March.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: 12.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in regard to the Treaty of Tirana between Italy and Albania, signed on 27th November, 1926, he has received from the Government of the Serb-Croat-Slovene Kingdom any communication as to the effect of that Treaty upon Yugoslav interests in the Balkan Peninsula; and, if so, what is the nature of that communication, and what is the attitude of His Majesty's Government thereto?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: His Majesty's Government are in communication with other interested Governments on various questions which have recently arisen in connection with Albania, but I am not in a position to make any further statement about them at the present time.

Mr. PONSONBY: 15.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Yugoslav Government has proposed a League of Nations' inquiry into the military preparations on the Albanian frontier?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The Yugoslav Government are, I understand, content to leave the form of inquiry, if any, to be decided by the British, French, and German Governments.

NICAKAGUA.

Sir FREDRIC WISE: 13.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if the cruiser "Colombo" is still in Nicaraguan waters; and what is the number of nationals who have taken it as a place of refuge?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: His Majesty's Ships "Colombo" left Nicaragua on 5th
March. No British subject took refuge on her during the short time it was found necessary for her to be in those waters.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS (RECRUITING GRATUITY).

Mr. CECIL WILSON: 20.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether any grant, bonus or other payment is made to industrial schools or to any member of the staff of such schools for each boy who on discharge joins the Navy; and, if so, whether he can state what the amount of such payment is and the conditions applicable to its receipt?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Lieut.-Colonel Headlam): No such payments are made to industrial schools or to any members of their staffs except that, if a Naval or Marine pensioner should be employed on the staff, he would be eligible to receive a recruiting gratuity of 5s. for each man or boy finally entered through his instrumentality in the Royal Navy in certain ratings or in the Royal Marines.

NAVAL MISSIONS.

Mr. DALTON: 21.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty what naval missions have been sent by His Majesty's Government to assist the Governments of foreign countries since 1914; and what has been the duration of their service in each case?

The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Bridgeman): As the reply contains a number of dates, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

The reply is as follows:

I assume that the hon. Member refers only to officers sent for advisory or instructional purposes and not to the various contingents known as missions who proceeded to various Allied countries during hostilities to assist in actual operations. The countries to which officers have been sent, and the periods of their service, are as follow:

Greece.—

September, 1913, to January, 1917.
November, 1917, to April, 1919.
June, 1919, to November, 1923.
1232
November, 1924, to April, 1925.
Advisory only.
April, 1925, to May, 1926.
March, 1927 (for two years).

Turkey.—April, 1912, to September, 1914.

Rumania.—

April, 1920, to July, 1920.
April, 1922, to April, 1924.

Poland.—September, 1919, to January, 1921.

Finland.—July, 1924, to March, 1925. Advisory only.

Chile. —January, 1926 (for two years). Advisory staff.

SUBMARINES (MANNING).

Sir BERTRAM FALLE: 23.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if the recently introduced compulsory system of manning submarines is proving satisfactory, or if experience is showing that the older system was more efficient and led to greater contentment; and whether he will consider reverting to the older system, particularly for those ratings who joined up when the service in submarines was voluntary?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The present system of manning submarines is proving quite satisfactory, and no reason is seen for any change.

ARMOUR-PLATE PLANT.

Mr. PONSONBY: 24.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has taken into consideration the large amount of public expenditure involved in assisting to maintain the five armour-plate manufacturing plants which are not now required, but will be required to resume certain classes of shipbuilding when the Washington Convention expires in 1931; and what steps he proposes to avoid this expenditure?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The hon. Member's question appears to be based on a misapprehension. The Admiralty are only paying for armour actually ordered and are paying for this at a reasonable rate considering the smallness of the quantities. I think the country is to be congratulated on being able to retain a plant which is of immense national importance on such terms.

Commander BELLAIRS: When a question purports to give the information
that the Washington Convention expires in 1931, should it not be accurate, and say that it expires at the end of 1936?

GREENWICH COLLEGE (CRICKET GRANT).

Captain CROOKSHANK: 26.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty why a grant in aid of the expenses of cricket at the Royal Naval College at Greenwich is made to the extent of £60; whether he is aware that there are ample unofficial sports funds in the Navy which might be drawn upon for this purpose; whether cricket is encouraged at the expense of the taxpayer in either the Army or the Royal Air Force; and whether, in view of the present financial stringency, he will recommend the abolition of this particular grant?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The grant referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend is made for the purpose of renting a cricket pitch for the use of officers at the college. It is the policy of the Admiralty, in the interest of the health and efficiency of the Naval personnel, to provide facilities for outdoor recreation, either by allowing the use of Admiralty land for the purpose or, where Admiralty land is not available, by renting the necessary accommodation. The position at Greenwich is not peculiar in this respect nor, as far as I am aware, does the policy of the War Office and Air Ministry differ from that of the Admiralty. All expenses connected with games, apart from the provision and maintenance of the grounds, fall on the officers and men themselves.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the cricket and football grounds at Greenwich, for which the Admiralty pays, are of the greatest use to the officers, who otherwise would be engaged in much less healthy recreation in London?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am obliged to the hon. and gallant Member for amplifying the answer which I have given.

His MAJESTY'S SHIP "DREDGOL."

Sir B. FALLE: 27.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty why the English crew of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary "Dredgol" were paid off and sent home from Malta, and the vessel manned by a Maltese crew?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: The employment of locally entered crews in
Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessels engaged on station duties abroad is in accordance with the usual Admiralty practice.

PENSIONS CONTRIBUTIONS.

Sir B. FALLE: 28.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether the naval and marine ratings employed in protecting British nationals and British property in China during the present trouble are charged the weekly contribution to the contributory widows' pension, in view of the fact that the widows of naval or marine ratings who have lost their lives in China are not entitled to draw the widows' pension under the 1925 Act?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: The reply is in the affirmative. In this connection I would invite my hon. and gallant Friend's attention to the replies given to his questions of the 17th November and the 1st, 9th, and 13th December last.

Sir B. FALLE: That docs not alter the fact that these men pay 4½d. a week for these benefits and that their widows cannot receive it.

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: As the hon. and gallant Member has been told on previous occasions, a widow can receive such benefits if her husband's death was due to causes which were not attributable to his service.

Sir B. FALLE: If a man is killed in action his widow gets no benefit from the 4½d.

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: No. But she would get another form of pension from the State.

Sir B. FALLE: But if he is killed in action?

Mr. CONNOLLY: Is it not a decision of the High Court, on 21st October, that these widows are entitled to this benefit?

Sir B. FALLE: They do not get it.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

ADMIRALTY (SUB-CONTROLLERS, CIVIL DEPARTMENTS).

Colonel Sir ARTHUR HOLBROOK: 22.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty how many sub-controllers were appointed in the various civil departments of the
Admiralty during the War period to deal with the congestion of work entailed by the War; how many of these sub-controllers have been demobilised since the War ceased; and whether he will take steps to concentrate the whole of the work in each department under one controller as in pre-War days?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: At this date it would require an unjustifiable expenditure of time to collect statistics as to additional posts found necessary during the War. But I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that no post has been retained because it was created during the War. The present establishment is based on careful subsequent investigation of peace requirements, and although there has been an increase of staff due to causes which have been explained on many occasions, the general scheme of organisation as regards control does not differ from that of pre-War days.

Sir A. HOLBROOK: How does the hon. Member account for the civil branch of the Admiralty costing five times as much as it did pre-War?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: That matter has been discussed many times, and I can assure the hon. Member that we are doing our best to reduce the staff.

WAR OFFICE.

Sir A. HOLBROOK: 61.
asked the Secretary of State for War how many sub-controllers were appointed in the various civil Departments of the War Office during the War period to deal with the congestion of work entailed by the War; how many of these sub-controllers have been demobilised since the War ceased; and whether he will take steps to concentrate the whole of the work in each Department under one controller as in pre-War days?

Captain DOUGLAS KING: There are no such appointments in the War Office.

ROYAL ORDNANCE FACTORY, ENFIELD.

Colonel APPLIN: 62.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the Civil Service Clerical Association communicated with his Department on the 25th September, 1925, asking whether the balance of civil pay
of a second-class writer serving in the Royal Ordnance Factory, Enfield, might be reassessed; that no less than 14 reminders have been addressed to his Department on the subject; that in December last the Financial Secretary stated, in reply to a Parliamentary question, that the matter would be expedited as far as possible; that the association concerned is still without a definite reply on the matter; whether arrangements will be made to furnish the association concerned with an early reply; and whether steps will be taken to ensure that questions affecting the staff employed in his Department will in future be promptly dealt with?

Captain KING: As I explained to my hon. and gallant Friend in December, the case raises a question of principle, on which it has been necessary to consult other Departments and make local inquiries. Everything possible will be done to expedite a decision, but cases of this kind, which involve investigation into circumstances arising 10 years and more ago, inevitably take considerable time.

Colonel APPLIN: Can my hon. and gallant Friend give me any date on which we may expect this decision?

Captain KING: From the nature of my answer my hon. and gallant Friend will realise that I can give no definite date, but I am again urging that the matter should be decided as soon as possible.

EX-SERVICE MEN (ADMIRALTY).

Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: 25.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that, according to Cmd. Paper 2808, his Department employs a smaller percentage of ex-service men than any other Government Department, and that in the case of disabled ex-service men the percentage (6.38 per cent.) is under half the percentage employed by any other Department; and whether he will give his reasons for this state of affaire, and state what steps he proposes to take to increase the total percentage of ex-service men and the percentage of disabled ex-service men employed!

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: The smaller percentage shown is due to the fact that an unusually large proportion of the Admiralty staff belongs to the shipbuild-
ing and engineering industries and the like, which, as my hon. and gallant Friend must be aware, were only allowed to volunter for military service to a very limited extent, because they were urgently required for warship and merchant ship building. If this special feature is allowed for, the Admiralty percentage does not compare unfavourably with other Departments. The Admiralty follows the rules laid down in regard to the employment of ex-service men in every respect.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

TRAVELLING ALLOWANCES.

Mr. CECIL WILSON: 29.
asked the Minister of Labour what arrangements exist in the Dominions and in European countries for granting or advancing travelling allowances to unemployed persons who, either as a result of their own initiative or through Employment Exchanges, find employment in other districts?

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland): I regret that I am not in a position to state what arrangements exist in the Dominions and in European countries for advancing travelling allowances to unemployed persons.

Mr. WILSON: Does not the International Labour Office publish the information.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I do not think so, but I will make inquiries.

COMPULSORY INSURANCE.

Mr. C. WILSON: 30.
asked the Minister of Labour the countries of Europe in which compulsory unemployment insurance is in operation; and in which of such countries agriculture is compulsorily insurable?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Systems of compulsory insurance against unemployment are in operation in the following European countries: Austria, Bulgaria, Italy, Poland, Switzerland (Cantons of Basle-Town, Glarus, Neuchatel and Solo-turn), and Soviet Russia. In Germany, contributions are compulsorily levied on employers and workers; but the system in operation is one of unemployment
relief rather than unemployment insurance. An Unemployment Insurance Bill, however, is now under consideration.
Agricultural workers are not insured in any country outside Soviet Russia.

Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: What is the actual payment made in Soviet Russia in the way of unemployment benefit?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am afraid I cannot tell the hon. Member.

BENEFIT PAYMENTS.

Mr. T. THOMSON: 31.
asked the Minister of Labour if, in view of the findings of the Blanesburgh Committee Report, he will state how many insured workers have drawn 13 weeks or more benefit during the last six months?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I regret that there are no statistics available giving the information desired.

Mr. THOMSON: In view of the findings of this Committee, is it not usual to have the information on which their findings are based?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: This is similar to the existing practice, which is that benefit is frequently given for a period of 12 or 13 weeks, and they are really continuing to act on the same basis as the existing practice, which has been found to be convenient and suitable.

JUVENILE CENTRES.

Mr. GEORGE HALL: 33.
asked the Minister of Labour whether it is proposed to establish any day-training centres in South Wales and Monmouthshire for the purpose of training young men and women at present unemployed?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: There are at present juvenile unemployment centres for unemployed boys and girls from 14-18 years of age in Cardiff and one, for boys only, in Swansea. I am prepared to consider any proposals which other local education authorities may make for the establishment of similar centres, subject to the usual conditions.

Mr. LANSBURY: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the establishment of day-training centres similar to those he has established for young men and women in Birmingham and London?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: It is a question of the means that are available. In themselves they are very desirable, indeed.

Mr. LANSBURY: Will the right hon. Gentleman ask his colleague the Chancellor of the Exchequer to find some money for this estimable work?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I will certainly ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can find money for this work.

Mr. LANSBURY: He can find it for any old war—[Interruption.]

MINERS (SOUTH WALES AND MONMOUTHSHIRE).

Mr. GEORGE HALL: 34.
asked the Minister of Labour the number of unemployed colliery workers in South Wales and Monmouthshire; and the number in the following age groups: below 21 years of age, 21 to 30, 31 to 40, 41 to 50, 51 to 60, 61 to 70, and over 70?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: At 21st February, 1927, there were 63,147 insured persons classified as belonging to the coal mining industry recorded as unemployed, including those temporarily stood off, in South Wales and Monmouthshire. Statistics giving the distribution of these workers among various age groups are not available.

Mr. HALL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that statistics are available in some of the Unemployment Exchanges —some have been supplied to me—and I should like to get a complete record for the whole of South Wales and Monmouthshire.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I will certainly make inquiry. The information I have given the hon. Member is all I have at my disposal.

Mr. PALING: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how these figures compare with the number of miners employed before the stoppage?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I cannot say.

Mr. MORRIS: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what proportion of the men unemployed are below 21 years of age?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: No, I cannot.

INSURED WORKERS (CONTRIBUTIONS).

Mr. T. THOMSON: 35.
asked the Minister of Labour if, in view of the findings of the Blanesburgh Committee Report, he can now state the number of insured workers who have made 30 or more contributions in the preceding two years?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: As I informed the hon. Member in reply to his question on 23rd March, an estimate is being prepared; but it will not be ready before the Recess.

LEITH DOCKS.

Dr. DRUMMOND SHIELS: 36.
asked the Minister of Labour if the Unemployed Grants Committee have reconsidered the question of giving assistance towards the extension of Leith docks, in view of the percentage of unemployment in Leith and the poverty and privation existing in the district?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: An offer of grant was made by the Unemployment Grants Committee to the Leith Docks Commissioners in March, 1926, towards the cost of the extension of Leith Docks. The Commissioners, however, decided to postpone the scheme and the Committee's offer was thereupon withdrawn. No new application has since been received from the Commissioners.

Dr. SHIELS: May I ask whether, if an application is made, it would be likely to meet with the same response as it did last year?

Mr. ERNEST BROWN: Has not the Port of Leith Association made an application in connection with this matter?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The body which can make a responsible application are the Commissioners, and if they make an application it will be considered, but until they make an application it is impossible to say what reception it would get.

Mr. BROWN: Will the right hon. Gentleman be prepared, in conjunction with the Secretary of State for Scotland, to see a deputation, if one can be arranged?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The hon. Member had better make a request for a deputation. I do not know from whom it would come, or whom it would represent.

INSURANCE FUND SCHEME.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: 38.
asked the Minister of Labour what figures of the live register will the income and expenditure of the Unemployment Insurance Fund balance, assuming that the ratio of those in receipt of benefit to the total number on the live register remains as at present?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: There is a number of special circumstances which may cause temporary variations in the balancing figure, but for general purposes it may at present be taken at about 1,050,000.

MEN OF SIXTY-FIVE.

Mr. ROBINSON: 40.
asked the Minister of Labour the number of persons aged 65 who are at present in receipt of unemployment benefit; and what is the anticipated saving that will be effected in the year 1928, when persons aged 65 will cease to draw unemployment insurance benefit?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I would refer my hon. Friend to the Report of the Government Actuary on the financial provisions of the Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Pensions Bill, paragraph 32. He there estimates the number of unemployed persons over the age of 65 insured under the unemployment, scheme when the age. pensions commence as 65,000, and the net annual savings to the Unemployment Fund as £2,100,000.

Mr. W. THORNE: Is it not a fact that, when the old age pension comes into operation in 1928, on account of their income being reduced they will have to fall back on the guardians?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: My hon. Friend will have to put that question, first of all, to the Minister of Health, and, if need be, to the Government Actuary.

BARROW-IN-FURNESS (FINANCIAL AID).

Mr. BROMLEY: 39.
asked the Minister of Labour if he has received a protest from the Barrow-in-Furness Education Committee against his decision to reduce the amount granted by his Department as financial aid to the unemployment centres in the town for the financial year 1927–28; and if, in view of the work done by these centres in Barrow and the fact that his action will either entail the
loss of this work or an additional ¼d. on the rates of the town, which has but recently made arrangements for a rate increase of 9d. to meet Poor Law needs, he will reconsider his decision with a view to more sympathetic treatment being given?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I have received a letter from the Barrow-in-Furness Education Authority protesting against the reduction of the rate of grant in aid of the Barrow Juvenile Unemployment Centres. In settling the arrangements for centres for the country generally for the year 1927–28 such modifications were made as appeared to assimilate the conditions as nearly as practicable to those which have been in operation during the current year, regard being had to altered industrial conditions. The effect in the case of Barrow was to reduce the rate of grant for 1927–28 from 100 per cent. to 75 per cent., but I trust this will not result in the centre being discontinued.

Oral Answers to Questions — AIR SERVICES.

LONDON-PRAGUE.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 41.
asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he can report any progress in the negotiations with the German Government for permission to fly from London to Praque via Cologne; if he is aware that the Czechoslavakian aviation interests are negotiating with a Dutch company for an air line from Prague to Amsterdam; and what steps he is taking to expedite the establishment of the British air line to Prague?

The SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Sir Samuel Hoare): As regards the first and last parts of the question, negotiations in connection with the proposed establishment of an air line to Prague are at present in progress between Imperial Airways Limited and the Czechoslavakian authorities and until they are nearer completion it would be premature to reopen with the German Government the question of permission for a Cologne-Prague air service. As regards the second part, I have seen an announcement in the Press but have no official information on the subject at present.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the right hon. Baronet aware that this matter has been held up for three years with the German Government, and will he seek help from the Foreign Office to have these restrictions on our Air service removed?

Sir S HOARE: I think that the hon. and gallant Member is under a misapprehension. The negotiations are between the Prague authorities and the Imperial Airways Company. It is not a question of Government intervention.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is it not a fact that the German Government refused to allow our aeroplanes to fly to Prague over their territory, and that they held us up in that way before?

Sir S. HOARE: No, Sir; that is not the obstacle. The obstacle is in the details of the arrangements between the Prague authorities and the Imperial Airways Company, and as soon as they are removed I am ready once again to take up the other question with the German Government.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: In the meantime, is there anything the right hon. Gentleman can do to assist in these negotiations, as he will be the first to admit that Prague is very much the centre of the air from this point of view?

Sir S. HOARE: It is a question of money. Anything I can do I will do. That is the obstacle.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: How much do you want?

BALLOON JUMPING (DEATH).

Colonel DAY: 42.
asked the Secretary of State for Air whether any action has been taken by his Department relative to the circumstances in which Leading-aircraftsman Ernest Arthur Dobbs met his death; whether the balloon manufacturers have admitted any liability as to Dobbs being in their service on the day in question; and is he satisfied that adequate precautions were taken at the balloon jumping trials?

Sir S. HOARE: As regards the first part of the question the usual Court of Inquiry has been held into this most unfortunate accident which took place at a private aerodrome and not at an Air
Force station. As regards the second and last parts the airman was on leave and acting in a purely private capacity, and accordingly the Air Ministry has no locus standi concerning the liability of the firm in question, or responsibility in respect of any of the circumstances attending this fatality.

Colonel DAY: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether this aircraftsman was specially warned before he started on this experiment?

Sir S. HOARE: I could not say offhand, but so far as I remember we had no knowledge that he was going to undertake it. He was on leave.

Mr. R. MORRISON: In the right hon. Gentleman's opinion does this balloon jumping serve any useful purpose?

Sir S. HOARE: I answered that question in the House two or three days ago.

AIR PORT, CROYDON.

Colonel DAY: 43.
asked the Secretary of State for Air the approximate date when the completion of the improvements and reconstruction of the air port of London at Croydon will take place?

Sir S. HOARE: It is expected that the work will be completed by the summer of 1928.

Colonel DAY: Will that include the special new wireless apparatus that is being erected?

Sir S. HOARE: It certainly concerns all the structural alterations. I am not quite sure about that particular detail. I would ask the hon. Member to put the question on the Paper.

SCHNEIDER CUP RACE.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 47.
asked the Secretary of State for Air if the British seaplanes intended to take part in the Schneider Cup race are to be loaned by his Department; if they are the high-speed Supermarine-Napier, Gloster-Napier, or Short machines; when these aircraft will be completed; and what steps he will take, having regard to the short time available, to ensure that Great Britain is represented in the competition, if in their trials neither of the three seaplanes now being built attain a speed which would justify their competing in the Schneider Cup race?

Sir S. HOARE: Entries for the Schneider Cup race are made by the Royal Aero Club and the Air Ministry has not hitherto accepted responsibility for ensuring the representation of this country in the competition. The question is, however, under consideration of making available for the race certain highspeed aircraft ordered by the Air Ministry of the types mentioned in the question; they are all due for completion well before the date fixed for the race.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Does the right hon. Gentleman not lend aeroplanes to the Aero Club for this race?

Sir S. HOARE: Not necessarily. We consider the cases on their merits each year.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: These are being lent from the Air Ministry this year?

Sir S. HOARE: No, Sir. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman will read the answer he will see that that is the question which we are considering now.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE.

OBSERVATION BALLOONS.

Viscount SANDON: 44.
asked the Secretary of State for Air whether personnel trained in all branches of observation balloon work are still on the active list; if so, how many, both as to officers and other ranks; whether any steps are being taken to keep them in training in this branch; whether research is still proceeding to perfect this arm; how soon, after an outbreak of war, could a full complement, consistent with artillery demands, be put into the field; and what is the establishment in this direction per military command?

Sir S. HOARE: The answer to the first, third and fourth parts of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the second, fifth and last parts of the question, it would not be in the public interest to disclose the proposed war complements of these units or the time which would elapse after the outbreak of war before they could be put in the field, but it can be stated that the existing arrangements and provision in peace time are considered adequate to meet prospective war requirements.

AIR MISSIONS.

Mr. DALTON: 48.
asked the Secretary of State for Air what air missions, if any, have been sent by His Majesty's Government to assist the Governments of foreign countries since 1914; and what has been the duration of their service in each case?

Sir S. HOARE: With the hon. Member's permission, I will circulate the reply, which is rather long, in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the reply:

Apart from war-time missions, the following missions have been despatched by His Majesty's Government for the purpose of advising foreign Governments on air matters:

Chile.—An officer of senior rank was sent to Chile in 1926 and is still in that country.

Finland.—After a preliminary investigation by a senior officer of the Royal Air Force another officer was lent for a period of two years from March, 1925; the engagement has recently been extended for a further six months.

Greece.—Royal Air Force officers formed part of the Naval Missions during the periods from December, 1919, to October, 1920, and from August, 1922, to April, 1923. In response to an application for further assistance from the Greek Government two officers have recently proceeded to Athens.

China (Central Government).—A Royal Air Force officer was employed from February, 1920, to September, 1922.

In addition to the above official missions, a number of unofficial missions have proceeded to foreign countries, and in connection with these, informal advice and assistance in the selection of personnel have been given by the Air Ministry.

AIRSHIP CONSTRUCTION.

Mr. ROSE: 50.
asked the Secretary of State for Air if he will place in the Library copies of the general arrangement plans for each of the two 5,000,000 cubic feet displacement airships to be constructed at Cardington and Howden, respectively?

Sir S. HOARE: I regret that I cannot accede to the hon. Member's request. I am advised that it is undesirable at
this stage to produce technical engineering drawings of the airships under construction.

Mr. ROSE: Is the right hon. Gentle-man aware that up to date he has claimed and been voted by this House no less than £40,000 for the work of drawing up plans alone, and is he prepared to say that there will be anything like value for the enormous outlay at Cardington alone?

Sir S. HOARE: I am carrying out the policy that was initiated by right hon. Gentlemen opposite, and I hope that it will prove very successful.

AIRSHIP SHEDS (CARDINGTON AND HOWDEN).

Mr. ROSE: 51 and 60.
asked the Secretary of State for Air (1) if he will place in the Library copies of the general arrangement, side and front elevation, plans of the reconstructed airship sheds at Cardington and Howden;
(2) if he will give the dimensions of the airship sheds at Cardington and Howden prior to the alterations which have been made to adapt them for the construction of the two 5,000,000 cubic feet displacement airships?

Sir S. HOARE: I will answer these questions together. The inside clearances of the sheds before alteration were as follow:





Cardington.
Howden.





Feet.
Feet.


Length
…
…
700
750


Width
…
…
180
150


Height
…
…
110
130


The length of the Cardington shed has been increased to 812 feet and the height to 156 feet; the width remains unaltered. The height of the Howden shed has been increased to approximately 140 feet by the removal of a girder over the doorway and of the runway at the top of the shed; the length and width remain unaltered. As regards the placing in the Library of plans of these sheds, if there is any widespread desire on the part of hon. Members for plans to be made available, I shall be happly to consider this suggestion, but, so far as I am aware, this is not at present the case.

PARACHUTES.

Viscount SANDON: 52.
asked the Secretary of State for Air from what country the silk used in the service parachutes comes; whether it can be procured in this country or the Empire; and whether, if not, any effort is being made to secure that it shall be in future?

Sir S. HOARE: As regards the first part of the question, the silk is woven in Japan. As regards the remaining parts, efforts have been made to obtain the silk from sources in this country but so far without success. It is essential to adhere rigidly to the specification in regard to weight and strength and thus to eliminate any risk of failure and consequent loss of life. I may add that the question of a possible British source of supply is still being pursued.

Colonel DAY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what the silk costs?

Sir S. HOARE: No, not without notice.

WASHINGTON CONVENTION (HOUES OF LABOUR).

Miss BONDFIELD: 45.
asked the Prime Minister whether the Cabinet has examined the Report of the Committee set up to examine the position in relation to the Washington Convention on hours of labour with a view to coming to an early conclusion; and, if so, whether he can state the policy of the Government with regard to the ratification of this International Convention?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave to her on the 23rd March, to which I have nothing to add.

Mr. CLYMES: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to note that the nature of the business to-morrow may afford an opportunity to refer to this question, and in view of the terms of his answer that is the intention.

NATIONAL OPERA HOUSE.

Sir A. H0LBROOK: 46.
asked the Prime Minister whether, as England is the only country in Europe without a national opera house, he will consider the desirability of setting up a committee
to formulate proposals for establishing in this country a national opera house on such a basis as regards prices of admission that people of all classes may have the opportunity of hearing the finest performances of grand opera in the English tongue?

The PRIME MINISTER: In the present state of the country's finances no such proposal as is suggested by my hon. and gallant Friend could be entertained.

Major CRAWFURD: As the right hon. Gentleman is not able to meet the point raised in this question, will he insist that in all opera houses in this country the season's programme shall include 25 per cent. of British operas?

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

SMALLPOX, DUNDEE.

Mr. T. JOHNSTON: 55.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he can give the House any information regarding the outbreak of smallpox in the congested area in Dundee; if the source of infection has been traced; and what precautions are being taken against the spreading of the disease?

The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Sir John Gilmour): I understand that up to this morning 42 cases of smallpox had been diagnosed in Dundee. Of these, four are adults, two are persons of 16 years of age, and the remainder are children of school age or under. With the exception of the four adults, who were vaocinated in infancy, all the cases were unvaccinated. The disease is very mild in type, and the outbreak is confined to a limited area in the east end of the city.
The source of infection has not yet been traced, but a member of the staff of the medical officer of health is wholly engaged in endeavouring to discover how the disease reached Dundee.
All cases are removed to hospital and steps are immediately taken to carry out disinfection. Another pavilion is being erected with the utmost expedition at the hospital; in the meantime a marquee is being used as emergency accommodation, and two others are available if required. Doctors, inspectors and nurses are carrying out a house-to-house visitation in the
infected area, to keep the outbreak under control, and cases of contact are removed to a reception house or kept under daily medical observation in their homes. A special staff is engaged on vaccination work under the direction of the medical officer of health who is, in addition, supplying lymph to general practitioners free of charge. Lymph for 16,000 persons has so far been issued. Centres have been established at which anyone may be vaccinated at any hour of the day within reasonable distance of his residence, and arrangements are being made for the vaccination of the staffs of workplaces and the inmates of institutions, etc. Vaccination is also being carried out at schools. As a precautionary measure, steps are also being taken to make chickenpox compulsorily notifiable throughout Scotland without delay, but meantime this is already in operation in Dundee by arrangement with medical practitioners.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that all these cases have arisen in the congested areas in the east end of Dundee; and if so, can he take other steps than merely vaccination to limit or prevent the spread of this disease?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I think my answer will show that every possible step is being taken to deal with the outbreak at the source by the method of vaccination.

Mr. JOHNSTON: I said "other than vaccination." Has the right hon. Gentleman taken any steps of a sanitary nature to deal with the outbreak?

Sir J. GILMOUR: Yes, Sir. The officers responsible for the health of the city are taking every possible step in every-direction.

Dr. VERNON DAVIES: Will the right hon. Gentleman try to ascertain how many so-called conscientious objectors are now submitting to vaccination?

OLD AGE PENSION CLAIM, DUNDEE.

Mr. JOHNSTON: 56.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware that the old age pension of Mrs. Isabella Clark, 6, Glamis Street, Dundee, has been stopped for the past nine weeks; that she is 83 years of age and that her sole income is 5s. weekly
from the pariah council; that a claim for renewal was lodged two months ago; and that letters of inquiry from a local Justice of the Peace and the clerk to the local pension committee to the Scottish Board of Health have remained unanswered; and what steps he proposes to take in the matter?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Major Elliot): I am aware of the circumstances referred to by the hon. Member, and regret the delay which has taken place, owing to the complicated nature of this case. I understand that pension has been granted as from 21st January, and that notice of the award has now been sent to Mrs. Clark. I am, however, writing the hon. Member more fully on the subject.

Mr. JOHNSTON: While thanking the hon. and gallant Gentleman for his answer, may I ask him if he has any reason to believe that it is a common practice in his Department that letters on these subjects should remain unanswered for six weeks at a time?

Major ELLIOT: The Department is actually proceeding with these inquiries, but it is a matter of policy during the present rush time to reduce mere acknowlegment correspondence as far as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

MOTOR CARS (IMPORTS).

Sir WILFRID SUGDEN: 57.
asked the President of the Board of Trade what was the average landed value of the motor cars imported in the last six months of 1926; and if, for comparison, he will state the average landed value of the motor cars imported in the first six months of 1925?

Sir B. CHADWICK: The average declared value (c.i.f. British port) of the imports into Great Britain and Northern Ireland of touring cars, including cabs, was £180 each in the first six months of 1925, and £155 each in the last six months of 1926; and of commercial vehicles £190 each in the first six months of 1925, and £141 each in the last six months of 1926.

Major CRAWFURD: Will the right hon. Gentleman also give the correspond-
ing figures for motor vehicles produced and sold in this country?

Sir B. CHADWICK: That does not arise out of this question.

ARTIFICIAL SILK YARN (IMPORTS).

Sir W. SUGDEN: 58.
asked the President of the Board of Trade the declared average value of artificial silk yarn imported in 1926 as compared with the average declared value of the artificial silk yarn imported in 1925?

Sir B. CHADWICK: The average declared value (c.i.f. British port) of all artificial silk yarn imported into Great Britain and Northern Ireland was 5s. 4d. a pound during 1925 and 4s. a pound during 1926.

MERCANTILE MARINE (MEDICAL SUPPLIES).

Mr. CONNOLLY: 59.
asked the President of the Board of Trade how often the standard list of drugs and appliances which all sea-going ships must take with them is revised in order to keep pace with modern developments?

Sir B. CHADWICK: The last revision of the medical scales for merchant ships was issued in 1924, and the preceding one in 1912.

SPECIAL CAMPAIGN PENSIONS.

Mr. ROBINSON: 63.
asked the Secretary of State for War, seeing that many old soldiers have difficulty in obtaining employment between the ages of 60 and 65, if he will amend the Regulations governing the grant of special campaign pensions so that they may be payable from the age of 60 instead of, as at present, 65?

Captain KING: I regret that I am unable to agree to the suggestion.

POOR LAW RELIEF (ELECTORAL DISQUALIFICATION).

Mr. W. THORNE: 64.
asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that when the forthcoming elections for urban district councils and boards of guardians take place in April thousands of men who have been obliged to receive Poor Law relief within the last year will be disqualified as candidates; and whether the
Government is prepared to take steps to remove the disqualification?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood): My right hon. Friend is aware of the statutory disqualification to which the hon. Member refers. The Government do not propose to take any action.

BRITISH INDUSTRIES FAIR.

Sir F. WISE: 65.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department what was the net cost to the taxpayer of the British Industries Fair held in London and Birmingham?

Sir B. CHADWICK: No cost was involved to the taxpayer on account of the recent British Industries Fair apart from the special publicity grant of £25,000.

Commander WILLIAMS: Was not this Fair most successful in advertising the goods of the Empire?

Sir B. CHADWICK: Yes, Sir.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a competent organiser could have run this Fair quite successfully without any grant from public funds?

Sir B. CHADWICK: It is generally supposed to have been run very successfully.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: Is it not a fact that there is no more competent organiser than the permament head of the Overseas Trade Department?

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there are organisers of exhibitions who could have run an exhibition of this sort with half the staff?

INDIA (GOLD PURCHASES).

Sir F. WISE: 66.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India the amount of gold which India bought in 1925 and 1926?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Earl Winterton): The net imports of gold into India on private account were, in






Fine ounces.


1925
…
…
…
10,393,867


1926
…
…
…
4,071,521


There were no imports or exports of gold on Government account in the years in question.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE.

CO-OPERATIVE ENTERPRISE.

Mr. RILEY: 67.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether any loans have been arranged during the year 1926 under the Ministry's scheme of assistance to co-operative enterprises; and the number of enterprises so assisted and the total amount of loans?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Guinness): No loans were arranged in 1926, although an application by one society was agreed to on certain conditions.

CASH-ON-DELIVERY SERVICE.

Mr. RILEY: 68.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is prepared to issue a Report showing how far the cash-on-delivery system is being used for the distribution of farm produce; and what steps, if any, are being taken by the Ministry to encourage this means of distribution?

Mr. GUINNESS: It is not practicable to determine precisely the proportion of agricultural parcels sent by this service, but it has not been very large. In reply to the last part of the question, the hon. Member will see from a copy of a free leaflet that I am sending him what action the Ministry has taken in its endeavour to popularise trade in parcels of homegrown country produce, and also the extent to which the National Farmers' Union have co-operated.

Sir ROBERT THOMAS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the British farmer is not at all interested in the cash-on-delivery system, but is interested in the provision of a credit system to tide him over the period until he can give delivery; and will the right hon. Gentleman take some steps to help him with a credit system?

Mr. GUINNESS: I cannot say that this has anything to do with the question, but the evidence which has reached mo does not bear out the hon. Member's suggestion that the farmer does not want cash on delivery. Innumerable resolutions have been sent to me urging it.

Mr. EVERARD: Is it not a fact that this system is not used more by agriculturists because the price is too high?

Mr. GUINNESS: I think there is no doubt that the small advantage which has been taken of it by agriculturists is due to the fact that agricultural parcels are rather bulky in proportion to their value.

INSPECTOR OF CONSTABULARY.

Mr. R. MORRISON: 69.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department the age of the additional inspector of constabulary recently appointed at a salary of £l,000 a year; whether he is in receipt of a State pension; from what Department and of what amount; what will be the retiring age; and whether his new position is also pensionable?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir William Joynson-Hicks): Mr. Parry is 57. He has a pension of £666 13s. 4d. from the police authorities of Cumberland and Westmorland in respect of his police service. He will be required to retire at 65 unless his service is specially extended. The post is pensionable subject to the usual Civil Service conditions, but Mr. Parry will not be able to qualify for a pension, as distinct from a gratuity, unless his service should be extended beyond the normal retiring age.

Mr. R. MORRISON: Would it not have been possible to have got someone for this post who was not already in receipt of a pension of £600?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I should think it would have been quite possible, but I wanted to get the best man I could for the post.

Sir JAMES REMNANT: How long has this inspector been on pension and out of the service?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Off-hand, I should think about three years, but I am not sure.

Mr. HAYES: In view of the fact that this particular appointment was given to a man who has left the police service for seven years, would it not have been better to have appointed a younger chief constable?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: My sole object was to get the very best man I could for the post. I saw Mr. Parry personally, and I believe I have got a
man who is thoroughly efficient and who will make a first-rate inspector.

PRISONERS (SHORT SENTENCES).

Mr. CADOGAN: 70.
asked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the fact that, on an average, out of every five men who are in gaol, three have been previously convicted, that out of every five women in gaol four have been previously convicted, and that out of the total prison population at least one-seventh have been convicted over 20 times, he will consider reviewing the whole question of short sentences for so-called ins-and-outs and of the method of treatment of the habitual criminal; and whether he proposes to introduce legislation dealing with this question?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: No, Sir. I am not able at present to foreshadow legislation, but I have frequently condemned the useless character of the short sentence.

Mr. CADOGAN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say why he cannot introduce legislation?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: It would mean interference with the discretion of magistrates and Judges, and legislation of a very difficult character, and I have not at all made up my mind yet what is the best means of dealing with this very difficult question.

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Does not the failure of short sentences show that the policy of members of the legal profession who objected to it at the time was founded on sound premises?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I am not-acquainted with ancient history.

Sir HENRY CAUTLEY: Is not the large percentage of more than once convicted persons in the prison population due in great measure to the extended use of the probation system, and is it not desirable that this system should be extended?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Under the law at present a magistrate can either put a person on probation, or, if the-case is such that the magistrate feels that a sentence is necessary, inflict such a penalty as will make the prisoner not want to go back a second time.

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: The right hon. Gentleman did not answer my question.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I am afraid my hon. Friend did not hear my answer. It was that I was not acquainted with ancient history.

Mr. MAXTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider doing something efficient for the men who are discharged from prison after their first sentence to enable them to establish themselves?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: A very great deal is being done by the Discharged Prisoners Aid Society and by other persons interested in prisons, and every possible effort is being made to give these men a fresh start in life.

HACKNEY BAKERY (DEATH).

Mr. W. THORNE: 71.
asked the Home Secretary if his attention has been called to the remarks made by the coroner at the inquest held at Hackney on the 23rd instant in connection with the death of a baker who had been sleeping in a bakehouse for a considerable time; and whether he intends taking any action in the matter?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I am informed that the local authority, who are responsible for the administration of Section 100 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, have decided to take proceedings against the occupier.

Mr. THORNE: Is it the Home Office or the local authority which has control over bakehouses for inspection purposes?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have already communicated with the local authority, which has the obligation to take proceedings if it sees fit.

TRAFFIC IN ARMS.

Mr. MAXTON: 72.
asked the Home Secretary if any contravention of the China Order in Council, 1925, in regard to trafficking in arms has been reported to his Department; and, if so, what steps does he propose to take?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: No, Sir. The Commissioner of Police has informed
me of certain communications, but at present there appears to be no ground for action on his part or mine.

Mr. MAXTON: Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that the Commissioner before whom the statements have been made proposes to make no further investigation at all?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: No, I did not say that he intended to make no further investigation. I understood the hon. Member to mean proceedings, and at present I see no ground for proceedings either on behalf of the Commissioner or of myself. If the hon. Member or the body which sent these communications are prepared to substantiate them and make a criminal case against the man concerned in the question, of course, I will go into the matter further.

Mr. MAXTON: If the persons concerned have placed before the right hon. Gentleman prima facie evidence that this has taken place, is it not the duty of his Department to make the fullest investigation into the allegation?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have made investigation into this case, and the information that I have received is that the man in question, who caused the communication to be made to the Commissioner through the "New Leader" is an ex-convict, who has had several convictions against him for obtaining money by-false pretences, and at present we think he is pulling the leg of the hon. Member's frisnds.

Mr. MAXTON: Does the right hon. Gentleman's Department regard this as another attempt to procure money by false pretences?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: At present we are not satisfied that the case is really as serious as the hon. Member's friends have suggested it is. We are not satisfied that it is not a bogus case put up by the man in question, the ex-convict, but if the hon. Member or his friends can give me any evidence which will really lead to the conclusion that this is a good case in which to take proceedings, proceedings will be taken.

Mr. MAXTON: If I assure the right hon. Gentleman that this British subject definitely offered to sell arms to Chinese representatives in this country, presum-
ably for using against this country, is not that sufficient evidence for him to take the proper steps?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The whole question is whether it was a genuine attempt to sell arms to Chinese subjects. If I am satisfied about that, proceedings will be taken at once, but at present I am not satisfied that it is a genuine offer at all, but think it may be merely an attempt to pull the leg of the hon. Member's friends.

Mr. HAYES: Is the right hon. Gentleman acting on the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I think that is not a question that can be put.

Mr. HAYES: May I ask whether, in fact, the case has been referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: No, I think not. In regard to a case where criminal proceedings are, as it were, hovering in the balance, I cannot say more than I have said.

Miss LAWRENCE: If this was an imposture, did it not resolve itself into an attempt to obtain money for certain people, Chinese, by false pretences, and will the right hon. Gentleman give that aspect of the case his careful consideration?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: That is the very aspect that I am prepared to consider. I am quite willing to direct consideration of proceedings, either for a breach of the law in regard to selling arms to the Chinese, or for obtaining money by false pretences; but at present I am not satisfied which is the right leg to stand upon.

Mr. TAYLOR: On a point of Order. Is the use of the term "pulling one's leg" a Parliamentary expression?

Mr. SPEAKER: I see no reason to object to it.

MARRIAGE (LEGAL AGE).

Major HILLS: 73.
asked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the evils which the League of Nations' Committee indicate as arising from a low age of marriage, he will introduce legislation to raise the legal age of marriage?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: In the Report on the Traffic in Women and Children, it is suggested that in some countries the low age of marriage may-lead to abuses in connection with this traffic, but there are no grounds for thinking that such abuses occur in this country —where the investigators found no evidence of traffic on an organised scale.

Viscountess ASTOR: Is it not an anomaly that we should have the age of consent 16 in this country and the age of marriage 12, and if I can bring some evidence of people who are interested in this before the right hon. Gentleman, will he favourably consider it?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I almost brought in a Bill last year to deal with this subject, but I found that it was terribly difficult. I shall be quite willing to consider any representations made in reference to it by my Noble Friend.

Viscountess ASTOR: Thank you very much. May I point out that this is really an old Roman Catholic law, the age of marriage being 12, and not really a Protestant law?

POLICE CONSTABLE, ST. HELEN'S (FINE).

Mr. DIXEY: 74.
asked the Home Secretary if he is now in a position to say whether the inquiry into the penalty imposed by the St. Helen's Watch Committee on a constable, arising out of the general strike, was in accordance with the rules and regulations of the Home Office and was conducive to good police discipline?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have now-received full reports of the disciplinary-proceedings in this case, and, so far as I can find, the procedure was in accordance with the Regulations. I do not desire to comment further upon it.

Mr. SEXTON: Has the right hon. Gentleman any information to the effect that, as a result of the batoning, it is reported that the boy's eyesight is so affected that he has been compelled to leave his employment, and is there no legal remedy which can be applied to such a case?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have received a full report on this case, and I have answered that I believe the procedure was in accordance with the
Regulations and, therefore, it was not necessary for me, nor do I desire, to express any opinion on the conduct of the case or make any further remarks about it. I have no authority.

BEER AND SPIRITS (EXCISE DUTIES).

Mr. SHEPPERSON: 76.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consider the possibility of assisting British agriculture in the same manner that agriculture in the Colonies is, by means of the reduction of the excise on Colonial wines and tobacco, already assisted, by granting a similar reduction of the excise on beer and spirits proved to be made entirely from British-grown malt and hops?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Ronald McNeill): My right hon. Friend has noted my hon. Friend's suggestion.

SINGAPORE DISTURBANCES.

Mr. LANSBURY: 77.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can give the House any further in formation relative to the shooting which recently took place at Singapore; and has he yet decided whether a special public inquiry into the circumstances connected with this incident should be held?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Amery): I understand that the inquest is still proceeding, and I am not yet in a position to add anything to the reply returned to the hon. Member on the 16th March.

Mr. LANSBURY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when he is likely to be able to give any further information?

Mr. AMERY: I am not sure how long the inquest proceedings will take. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put down a question in a week's time.

NEW MEMBER SWORN.

EDWARD-ANTHONY STRAUSS, esquire, for the Borough of Southwark (North Division).

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTION.

SPEECHES.

Mr. R. HUDSON: I beg to give notice, that on this day fortnight, I shall call attention to the length and dullness of the Speeches from the Benches opposite, and move a Resolution.

FRENCH DEBT.

Major TASKER: I beg to give notice, that on this day fortnight, I shall call attention to the French Debt, and move a Resolution.

UNEMPLOYMENT.

Colonel GRETTON: I beg to give notice, that on this day fortnight, I shall call attention to the Unemployment and distress in certain important Industries, and move a Resolution.

GOVERNMENT WHIPS.

Sir HARRY BRITTAIN: I beg to give notice, that on this day fortnight, my hon. Friend Sir Frank Meyer will call attention to the amiability, courtesy and energy of the Government Whips, and move a Resolution.

LEGALISATION OF BETTING.

Mr. DIXEY: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the recognition and legalisation of betting.
I have previously introduced a Bill on similar lines to this, and I moved it then on the same grounds on which I am moving it to-day. In the first place, I think the people would like to see some clarification of the law of betting. At the present time the people of this country, and the Government, are animated by false standards of morals with regard to this question. If betting is bad for the morals of the people, if it is what we are told it is, a cancer in the life of the nation, there is only one proper and logical way of tackling it, and that is by making it illegal altogether. I can quite understand the point of view of certain hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House and of certain hon. Gentlemen and an hon. Lady on this side of the House—they say betting is bad and, therefore, they are in favour of prohibiting it; but I cannot understand
the point of view of a large number of hon. and right hon. Members who are quite prepared to do a bit of credit betting whenever it suits themselves and at the same time will tell the House that the country will not allow us to pass a proper code of law for betting.
If hon. Members opposite look at this point fairly, from the point of view of the whole population, they will come to the conclusion that if we are afraid to deal with betting by stamping it out, if we must acknowledge that people have the right to bet, it is more reasonable and proper to face that fact and make betting as decent as we possibly can. We all know that British people will bet, whatever Governments may say. If a working man desires to bet, and I think properly—[Interruption.] I am not a bit ashamed of that. I think it is a very healthy recreation for a working man to have some interest in following his fancy, in moderation; and right hon. Gentlemen and hon. Gentlemen opposite who sneer at what I say are the first people to go and have a bit on.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: On a point of Order. I took no notice of the hon. Gentleman the first time, but this is the second time that the hon. Gentleman—why, I do not know—has intimated that we on these benches are engaged in betting and gambling. Is it in Order to pick out one section of the House, to accuse us of this weakness?

Mr. SPEAKER: I think the hon. and gallant Member has too easily taken it to himself.

Mr. DIXEY: I can assure the hon. and gallant Member that I had no intention—

Mr. SPEAKER: If the hon. Gentleman would take care to address me, he would avoid these difficulties.

Mr. SUTTON: Do not accuse Mr. Speaker of betting.

Mr. DIXEY: One reason for bringing this Bill forward is that I feel that if the position is stated clearly hon. Members on all sides of the House must come to the conclusion that it is far better to face the situation and put betting on proper lines than to go on as we are at
the present time. Since I last moved this Bill an important alteration has taken place in the law. Not only does the State now recognise betting, it also takes taxation from it, and I submit, in fairness to the people of the country, that the time has come when we ought to say that if betting is to be allowed at all it should be allowed under supervision.

Viscountess ASTOR: rose—

Mr. SPEAKER: Does the hon. Member rise to oppose the Bill?

Viscountess ASTOR: I rise to oppose this Bill, as I opposed the Bill which the Government brought in. If betting be illegal, we should not look upon it as a means of revenue. Everything that some of us said when that Bill was brought in has happened. There have been two Committees set up on the taxation of betting and both have said that it was not practicable. It would not please the racing people, nor reduce betting, nor raise the revenue that was expected. It has really driven betting into the back streets. You cannot prove that it has reduced it. It simply means that we are going back to the middle of the last century, when, even in those days before the women had the vote, the country would not allow gambling houses to exist. If you are going to legalise betting, you will have to have betting houses all over the country. That is why we oppose the Bill. The logical outcome of the Government Bill must be the creation of licensed houses, and I think the Government now realise that the country would never stand it. The hon. Gentleman said something about it being a recreation for people to back their fancy. There are a great many things which people do and against which the Government cannot legislate, but this betting evil, we who are interested in the social conditions of the great mass of the people know, is to be found not only among the poor but also among the rich. If it be an evil, then some day the country will have to face up to it as an evil.

Brigadier - General Sir HENRY CROFT: Has the Noble Lady never given a tip?

Viscountess ASTOR: No, the people who were funny with me when the last Bill was before the House will live to
be ashamed of it. May I remind hon. Members of the letters which they are getting from their constituents on this subject? This is not a thing which you can be funny about. It has aroused among the great mass of the people what we call the Nonconformist conscience of England. I warned the House then, and I warn them again. The hon. Gentleman cannot point to any part of the House, because, like all evils, this evil belongs to no section of the country, but to all classes. I do not know why the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) should take it personally.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Because the hon. Member for Penrith and Cockermouth (Mr. Dixey) mentioned these benchesm.

Viscountess ASTOR: It is not confined to any section. I rise to oppose the Bill, and, if it goes to a Division, I hope that Members on this side of the House will take the chance that they did not take the last time when we warned them, and will vote against legalising betting houses which, no matter what the so-called sporting people say, is what this Bill would really mean, and in that you would be up against the moral conscience of the great mass of the people of the country.

Question put,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the recognition and legalisation of betting.

The House divided: Ayes, 44; Noes, 143.

Division No. 65.]
AYES.
[4.5 p.m.


Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.
Finburgh, S.
Radford, E. A.


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Gauit, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton
Raine, W.


Astbury, Lieut.-Commander F. W.
Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Reid, Capt. Cunningham (Warrington)


Barnett, Major Sir Richard
Grant, Sir J. A.
Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)


Bellairs, Commander Cariyon W.
Hanbury, C.
Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl. (Renfrew, W.)


Berry, Sir George
Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)
Sheffield, Sir Berkeley


Braithwaite, Major A. N.
Hayday, Arthur
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H.C.(Berks, Newb'y)
Holland, Sir Arthur
Tasker, R. Inigo.


Buckingham, Sir H.
Hopkins, J. W. W.
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Burgoyne, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Alan
Knox, Sir Alfred
Wilson, Sir C. H. (Leeds, Central)


Campbell, E. T.
Malone, Major P. B.
Wilson, M. J. (York, N. R., Richm'd)


Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Meyer. Sir Frank
Womersley, W. J.


Churchman, Sir Arthur C.
Murchison, Sir Kenneth



Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)
Nicholson. O. (Westminster)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)
Penny, Frederick George
Mr. Everard and Dr. Watts.


Dixey, A. C.
Perring, Sir William George



NOES.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fits, West)
Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)
Lansbury, George


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Fermoy, Lord
Lawson, John James


Baker, Walter
Gardner, J. p.
Lee, F.


Barker, G. (Monmouth. Abertillery)
Gibbins, Joseph
Lindley, F. W.


Barnes, A.
Gillett, George M.
Lowth, T.


Batey, Joseph
Gosling, Harry
Lumley. L. R.


Bondfield, Margaret
Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.)
Lunn, William


Briant, Frank
Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.
Mackinder, W.


Broad, F. A.
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John


Bromfield, William
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.


Bromley, J.
Groves, T.
Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Grundy, T. W.
Montague, Frederick


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Morris, R. H.


Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel
Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)


Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward
Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)


Cape, Thomas
Hardie, George D.
Naylor, T. E.


Charleton, H. C.
Harris, Percy A.
Nelson, Sir Frank


Cluse, W. S.
Harrison, G. J. C.
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)


Clynes. Rt. Hon. John R.
Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)
Oliver, George Harold


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Owen, Major G.


Compton, Joseph
Hills, Major John Walter
Paling, W.


Dalton, Hugh
Hirst, G. H.
Parkinson, John Alien (Wigan)


Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)
Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard
Ponsonby, Arthur


Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)
Potts, John S.


Davies, Dr. Vernon
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Rees, Sir Beddoe


Day, Colonel Harry
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)


Duckworth, John
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Riley, Ben


Dunnico, H.
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Ritson. J.


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Kelly, W. T.
Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)


Edwards, J. Hugh (Accrington)
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)
Robinson, W. C.(Yorks, W.R., Elland)


England, Colonel A.
Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.
Rose, Frank H.


Salter. Dr. Alfred
Sutton, J. E.
Westwood, J.


Shepherd, Arthur Lewis
Taylor, R. A.
Whiteley, W.


Short. Alfred (Wednesbury)
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)
Wiggins, William Martin


Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)
Thomas, Sir Robert John (Anglesey)
Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)


Sitch, Charles, H.
Thomson, Trevelyan (Middlesbro. W.)
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Skelton, A. N.
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Lianelly)


Smillie, Robert
Tinker, John Joseph
Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)


Smith, Rennie (Penistone)
Townend, A. E.
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Sneil, Harry
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip
Viant, S. P.
Windsor, Walter


Spencer, G. A. (Broxtowe)
Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L.(Kingston-on-Hull)
Wise, Sir Fredric


Spoor, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Charles
Warrender, Sir Victor
Wright, W.


Stamford, T. W.
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)
Young, Rt. Hon. Hilton (Norwich)


Strauss, E. A.
Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney



Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C.
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Sugden, Sir Wilfrid
Wellock, Wilfred
Viscountess Astor and Mr. Barr.


Sullivan, J.
Welsh. J. C.



Bill read a Second time.

LANDLORD AND TENANT (No. 2) BILL,

"to provide for the payment of compensation for improvements and goodwill to tenants of premises used for business purposes, or the grant of a new lease in lieu thereof; and to amend the law of landlord and tenant," presented by Secretary Sir WILLIAM JOYNSON-HICKS; supported by Mr. Attorney-General; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 106.]

CONSOLIDATION BILLS.

Reported from the Joint Committee in respect of the Poor Law Bill [Lords] (pending in the Lords), brought up, and read;

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).

SCOTTISH STANDING COMMITTEE.

Mr. WILLIAM NICHOLSON reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had added the following Ten Members to the Standing Committee on Scottish Bills (in respect of the Sheriff Courts and Legal Officers (Scotland) Bill): the Lord Advocate, Lord Colum Crichton-Stuart, Sir James Grant, Mr. Grotrian, Mr. Groves, Sir Charles Oman, Mr. Smillie, Mr. Sutton, Sir Frederick Sykes, and Mr. Luke Thompson.

Report to lie upon the Table.

BILLS REPORTED.

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill.

Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.

Bill to be read the Third time Tomorrow.

Chelsea Borough Council (Superannuation and Pensions) Bill,

Yeadon Waterworks Bill [Lords],

Southern Railway (Superannuation Fund) Bill,

Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Orders of the Day — PACIFIC CABLE BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

The SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Mr. Amery): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
This Bill, I venture to think, is entirely of a non-controversial character, and is one which need. not delay our proceedings. It embodies an agreement arrived at during the Imperial Conference by the Governments concerned in the administration of the Pacific Cable on certain matters affecting both the constitution and organisation of the Pacific Cable Board, and the finances of the undertaking. On all these matters, discussions have been going on for some years. It had been found difficult to settle some of these points by correspondence, but they were all settled satisfactorily when we were able to meet round the same table. The agreement embodied in the Bill has been communicated textually to the various Governments, which have approved the Measure as it stands. I may add that the Bill not only embodies the agreed modifications of the previous Acts but consolidates and re-enacts them in a single measure. Therefore, so far as the Partner Governments of the Empire are concerned, this is an agreed Bill. It is also, I venture to hope, an agreed measure as between the parties here. To a very considerable extent, the proposals contained in it represent arrangements arrived at after discussions between the right hon. Member for Derby (Mr. J. H. Thomas), who was Colonial Secretary in 1924, and the Dominion representatives who conferred with him. The two main points on which the present measure changes previous legislation are the constitution of the Pacific Cable Board itself and the financial arrangements for building up the reserve fund and for dealing with any surplus. As regards the first point, the House is aware that the Pacific Cable Board is an organisation on which the Governments of Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are represented. They are all partners in a common venture, and the extent of their partnership is in the following propor-
tions which represent the interests of the different countries in the profit or loss of the venture: Britain, 5/l8ths; Canada, 5/18ths; Australia, 6/18ths, and New Zealand, 2/18ths. On the other hand, in. the composition of the Board the interest of Great Britain has hitherto been represented by three members out of seven on the Board, and also by the right of the British Treasury to appoint the chairman. This preponderance of British control in a joint venture, in which the shareholding interest of the British Government is only a little more than one-fourth, is due partly to the fact that the original capital of £2,000,000 required for the construction of the first cable was advanced on loan by the Treasury, but also because it reflected in some measure the conception of 25 years ago with regard to the natural position which the Dominions and the Government of the United Kingdom, ought to occupy in any joint venture.
In recent years that constitution of the Board has been criticised by the Dominion Government as giving an inadequate share of representation and power to those Governments, as compared with the risks they run in the venture. These matters were discussed very fully with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas) in 1924, and it was then agreed with the Dominion representatives that in future the British representation should be two members on the Board instead of three, and that the appointment of the chairman should be made by the Board itself with the approval of the partner Governments, and that the appointment should no longer be the monopoly of the British Treasury. There were other minor points. One was that the remuneration of the members of the Board, other than servants of the Crown, should be £300 a year, and that the remuneration of the chairman should be increased from £600 a year to £1,000 a year in order to make it possible to secure the services of an active business man. That agreement of 1924 between our predecessors and the Dominion Governments is substantially embodied in paragraph I and in the Second Schedule of this Bill
Let me now come to the finance of the Measure. The original position was that His Majesty's Government advanced £2,000,000 for the construction of the first cable. That cable was completed in 1902 and it was provided for in the original
Act of 1901. That Act provided that £77,000 a year should be devoted to the payment of interest and sinking fund on this original advance. In addition to that the Board on its own initiative, as an ordinary business precaution, set aside £30,000 a year to a reserve fund for replacing and deterioration of the cable and other purposes. On this basis of working the Pacific Cable showed during the early years between 1902 and 1914–15 a regular loss which amounted altogether to £713,000 which was paid by the various partner Governments in proportion to their shareholding. Our own payment amounted to £198,000.
After that the whole situation changed, and since then the Pacific cable system has in addition to all the other advantages offered both to the security of the Empire and the cheapening of cable service, brought in a, regular substantial profit. In 1911 the Board came to the conclusion that it was desirable to supplement the original cable by an additional cable between New Zealand and Australia from Auckland to Sydney, and an Act was passed by this House enabling the reserve fund to be drawn upon for that purpose. This represented a very considerable concession made by the Treasury and His Majesty's Government to the Board, for it meant that instead of using surplus money to repay the original loan borrowed at 3 per cent. and having to borrow new money at a higher rate of interest for the construction of new cables, the Board was allowed to accumulate the surplus to reserve for the construction of new cables and to go on refunding the original 3 per cent. debt at a reasonable rate.

Sir FREDRIC WISE: What was the rate of interest?

Mr. AMERY: I could not give the rates of interest for all the years from 1911 onwards when these transactions took place. I think my hon. Friend knows very well that for most of the time, at any rate, the rate of interest was considerably above 3 per cent. With the construction of the first additional cable it became evident that further cables would be required, linking up Fiji with New Zealand and Australia, and gradually it became clear from the increased volume of traffic that if the cable was to do justice to all the countries affected,
we should require a duplication of the whole system. With this object in view the Board, in addition to the £30,000 set aside from the reserve fund from the beginning, devoted practically all its surpluses to reserve. By 1920 it had become quite clear that an additional cable costing over £2,000,000 would be required. Considerable investigations were made between 1920 and 1922 as to the possibility of duplicating by wireless instead of by cable. In view both of the greater running expense of wireless and the high strategical advantage of the cable, as well as of the fact that the latest scientific methods of building cables enabled a far more rapid transmission than hitherto, and while it was realised that wireless was advancing all the time, it was decided definitely in 1922 to lay a second cable of the very newest type. That cable was immediately taken in hand, and was completed right across to Vancouver Island by the autumn of last year at a total cost of something like £2,750,000.

Commander BELLAIRS: The right hon. Gentleman says the cable was completed right across to Vancouver. Where is the other end of the cable?

Mr. AMERY: The main long stretch is from Fiji to Bamfield on Vancouver Island, and we now have a complete duplicate system in operation linking up Australia and New Zealand via Canada. It is an all-red service, not only in respect of British ownership but also because it does not touch foreign territory at any point. I may add that by the Act of 1924 the Pacific Cable System also operates certain cables and wireless in the West Indies and the Caribbean Sea, and provision for continuing those powers is provided for in Clause 8 of the Bill The present position is that we have a very effective second cable and the system is producing a very considerable surplus.
Certain difficulties have, however, arisen under the terms of the Act of 1911. I must remind the House that that Act was passed during a period when the Pacific Cable was running at a loss and when we only contemplated the construction of certain additional cables of no very great cost, and therefore it did not contemplate a very large reserve. That Act provided that any money taken out
of the reserve for construction purposes should be replaced together with interest at 3½ per cent. within a period of 35 years. It certainly did not contemplate the building up of a reserve of well over £2,000,000, and the replacement of the reserve under the terms of the Act of 1911 would now impose an obligation on the Pacific Cable Board of paying something like £150,000 a year to the reserve. To do that would cripple the whole finances of the Board and make it impossible to bring down the rates. It would make it equally impossible to clear off the original debt to His Majesty's Government. Furthermore, such an accumulation of reserve is really wholly unnecessary, and it would be quite a disproportionate reserve from the point of view of ordinary business requirements. It was a reserve accumulated for a single specific purpose, namely, the financing of the duplication of the system. Now that that duplication has been completed there is no longer any reason for accumulating a reserve of that magnitude or for accumulating it at so rapid a rate. These considerations were very much in the minds of the partner Governments, and we arrived between us last October at a modification of the Act of 1911 with regard to the disposal of the surplus and the building up of a reserve. These arrangements, which are included in Clauses 3, 4, and 5 of the Bill, I can briefly summarise as follows:
The whole of the surplus of the present year, 1926½27, amounting to between £70,000 and £80,000, will be passed into reserve. In future, after the present year, the sum of £10,000 a year, or one-tenth of the year's surplus, whichever is the larger, is to be placed into the reserve, subject to a provision that that reserve may be further increased or may be diminished by consent of all the partner Governments. In the next two years following the present year, after that contribution is paid over to reserve, the surplus, if any, will be distributed among the partner Governments, though, in view of the recent substantial reduction of cable rates consequent upon the building of the new cable, I am not sure that there will be any very large surplus. After the next two years, the surplus will be equally divided between repayment of the original capital and distribution among the partner Governments.
I think that that arrangement represents a very satisfactory position. All the Governments concerned are now in a position to reap the fruits of their previous efforts and sacrifices in connection with the building up of this great Imperial system of communications. They are now in a position to do what has not been done before, namely, to distribute some profits between the Governments themselves. But I want to make it quite clear that the main object of this Imperial cable system is not profits, but service—service to the business community of the Empire and the development of inter-Imperial communications. I may remind the House that, immediately the first Pacific cable was completed, the cable rate to Australia broke from 10s. a word to 3s. a word, and, in spite of the fall in the value of money, the Pacific Cable Board has been able, since the duplicate cable was completed last October, to bring down the rate to 2s. a word for private messages and 6d. a word for cable messages—a very valuable contribution towards better business and better mutual understanding within the British community of nations.
In the second place, we are now in a position to accelerate the repayment of the original £2,000,000. I may mention, in passing, that that sum is now reduced to a total of about £1,270,000. By so doing, we shall set free a larger surplus, whether for further reduction of rates or for distribution of profits among the Governments concerned. Lastly, the Governments concerned are to-day in possession of a very valuable asset in the new cable, which is a cable of the most modern type, guaranteed to transmit a minimum of 600 words a minute, and in that respect, despite all other developments of wireless and other services which are going on, it is, I believe, a valuable asset both to the commercial development and to the security of the British Empire.
The whole story of the Pacific cable is an outstanding example of the value of co-operation between the Governments of the British Empire, and I should like to pay such tribute as I can to the vision and devoted persistence of Sir Sandford Fleming, the chief engineer of the Canadian Government railways, who for 20 years worked at this scheme, before
it was taken up by the Imperial Conferences of 1887 and 1894, and enlisted the interest of the Governments of the Empire and, not least, the powerful interest and support of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain. I think I have explained the purpose and object of this Measure sufficiently to enable the House to understand that it simply gives effect to certain changes which have been under discussion for the last three or four years with the other Governments of the Empire—discussion which ended in complete agreement on all sides; and, therefore, I do not think the House need have any hesitation in giving this measure its Second Reading.

Mr. WEBB: I venture to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on having brought forward a somewhat complicated matter with extreme lucidity, and, further, on being in a position to claim what I hope and believe will be the unanimous support of the House for this Measure. The right hon. Gentleman said that the Bill ought not to be a matter of controversy. I can assure him that, so far as my Friends are concerned, we have nothing to object to in this Bill, which, indeed, does little more than put into; the exact form of an Act of Parliament the provisional agreement which had been arrived at by nay right hon. Friend the Member for Derby (Mr. J. H. Thomas) with the Colonial Governments. It is a wonderful instance, as the right hon. Gentleman said, of co-operation among the Governments, and I think, if I may be allowed to say so, we may congratulate ourselves on its being a wonderful instance of something else—of something which, if we had had the good fortune to bring it forward, would have been denounced by hon. Members opposite as a gross piece of Socialism.

Commander BEL LAIRS: The Governments concerned allow no private competition. They would not allow a private company to lay a cable via Honolulu.

Mr. WEBB: I fail to gather the relevance of the hon. and gallant Gentleman's interruption, but I am glad to have his assent to my statement that this would have been denounced as a piece of egregious Socialism. It is a wonderful example of foresightedness and preparing for future years irrespective of the pecuniary profit of the moment. What
is more, it is an instance, as the right hon. Gentleman himself said, of something which is being done, not for profit, but for service. This project has been incubating for 40 years or so. These Socialist projects take a long time in incubation. They are denounced by all practical men, by all business experts, by all the people who are so sure that the theorists know nothing about it; and very often, when the theorists are dead, the project is eventually carried out by common consent and universal agreement. In this enterprise, from the first, private profit has been kept at a distance; no one is allowed to share it. We actually wasted this opportunity of furnishing large incomes to financial houses and to telegraph companies; we even wasted the Income Tax which the Chancellor of the Exchequer might have derived from taxing the profits which he allowed them to make. The Government stepped in and placed at the disposal of this service, which is to be a service for the whole community, Government capital and Government credit. And the whole thing has been carried through with the assent of hon. Members opposite and the assent of hon. Members in the other corner of the House, without, perhaps, their realising that it was being carried out definitely and avowedly on the principles of Socialism.
There is another respect in which it is significant. It has been done with the best advice, with the greatest possible care and skill, and managed, I believe, excellently; but nevertheless, for the first few years, it did not yield what is called a profit. Of course, it did yield a profit, because, as the right hon. Gentleman has just said, it compelled the telegraph companies to reduce their charges immediately, and that reduction of their charges meant, of course, a profit to the community—a profit to the users of the service at the expense of the monopolists who had hitherto been charging more than they needed to charge. Quite rightly, in accordance with all the principles of business, and with all the sanction of political economy, they were charging all that the traffic would bear, and so a new force had to be brought in, entirely on Socialist principles, to compel them to reduce their charges; and that was done without an Act of Parliament to compel them, without any interference with their liberty, without any
infringement of their concessions, and without any compensation for what was done. This was done, not by wicked Socialists, but by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House, belonging to the Unionist party. Under the inspiration of the great Joseph Chamberlain, they carried out this purely Socialist Measure by Socialist procedure, with Socialist objects and Socialist ends. And then they went to the country and thanked God they were not as other men were—those silly, unpractical, theoretical Socialists. Some of these theoretical, unpractical, visionary Socialists saw what was being done, understood it, and rejoiced at it, but they did not necessarily claim the credit of it, because they did not want hon. Members on the other side to wake up and discover bow Socialistic they were without realising it.
As I have said, we have nothing to complain of in this Measure. It sets the seal of a quarter of a century of about as successful a Socialist enterprise as can possibly be imagined; and now, if the House passes this Measure, as it will do presently, we shall have hon. and right hon. Gentlemen next week, the week after, the week after that, and all down next year right up to the general election, protesting that Socialism, the wicked thing that attempts to reduce their profits, that attempts to make them reduce the prices they charge to the public, is sheer confiscation, not to be thought of by those who are the heirs of the wisdom and statesmanship of the ages. They will make broad their phylacteries, and thank God that they are not as other men, and will call upon all the old ladies in their constituencies— and probably, by that time, all the young ladies too—to have nothing whatever to do with a Socialist Government, because it is going to lead to the breaking up of laws, the destruction of the family, and the disruption of the British Empire. This Measure, which has been brought in by the Secretary of State for the Dominions, and of which he is proud, is, as he knows just as well as I do, a Socialist Measure. He knows that it has been carried out successfully because it is a Socialist Measure, that it has worked well because it is a Socialist Measure, because, that is to say, it has not been interfered with by the inter-
vention of the private capitalists. It has never had to consider the amount of dividends it has had to pay on its shares; it has measured its success by the services it was rendering, not by the dividends it was paying on capital.
The right hon. Gentleman paid tribute to what he called the partner Governments for their co-operation in this matter. "Partner Governments" is a good phrase, a new phrase, and one which we may welcome, although once in his speech the right hon. Gentleman dropped into the old phrase, "the Empire." The right hon. Gentleman knows that the British Empire has been definitely abolished by Act of Parliament. One of the first things in which I co-operated when I entered this House at the end of 1922, was a Bill which I think was carried unaimously, or, at any rate, by an enormous majority, setting up the Free State in Ireland, and incidentally altering the oath; and that oath of allegiance which had to be taken, and which was embodied in the Schedule to that Bill, incidentally gave a new description, a new title, to what used to be the British Empire. That new title is the British Commonwealth of Nations and that, by insertion in that Act of Parliament, became the title of what was formerly the British Empire. Just as General Smuts said the British Empire had passed away, so the Parliament in 1922 superseded the British Empire, with all the authority of Statute Law, by the British Commonwealth of Nations. That is simply a matter of dry law and though, of course, we shall still constantly linger on using obsolete phrases and terms, it is interesting to notice that the legal title, and the only legal title, of what used to be called the British Empire is now the "British Commonwealth of Nations."

Mr. AMERY: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I remind him of the very important Report of Lord Balfour's Committee adopted by the whole Conference, and in the dominant sentence of that Report it was underlined in italics that the word "Empire" was to be preserved and the Dominions were referred to as autonomous communities within the British Empire.

Mr. WEBB: The right hon. Gentleman is very ingenious, but even he will not
venture to set up the authority even of Lord Balfour's Committee against the authority of Parliament. I would remind him, as he is a loyal subject, that this Act of 1922 has not only been assented to by another place but also has the assent of His Majesty the King, which I think puts the seal upon it. I regard that step as a new departure. It is a mistake we are always dropping into talking about this country as governing in any sense the other parts of the British Commonwealth of Nations. His Majesty's Government here is responsible for the government of this country. His Majesty's Government in the Commonwealth of Australia is equally and parallelly responsible for the government of Australia. His Majesty's Government in New Zealand is responsible for the government of New Zealand, exactly in the same sense that His Majesty's Government here is responsible for the United Kingdom. So we have passed away from the assumption that this country, or even this Parliament, governs what used to be called the British Empire and we are now part of the Commonwealth of Nations. This Pacific Cable Bill has afforded an interesting text not merely for this exposition, examination and elucidation of this remarkably successful Socialist enterprise, but also marks a stage in the evolution of what used to be the British Empire.

Commander BELLAIRS: I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Seaham (Mr. Webb) and the Socialist party on having discovered one little ewe lamb that they can claim as a success, but I do not know whether it is a very good working example of Socialism. In the first place, private enterprise is excluded altogether. If any cable company in 1902, wishing to bring about competition, had wished to lay a sensible cable from Vancouver to Honolulu, landing rights would never have been granted by the Canadian Government. The result was that private enterprise was excluded altogether and competition was excluded except from the Eastern Telegraph Company. Had private enterprise laid a cable to Honolulu and thence by way of other suitable landing points on to Australia, the cable would have been very much cheaper and it would also have dovetailed in with the American.
cable to Honolulu, which would have been an immense advantage strategically and commercially, and instead of going to a barren rock where commerce could not go, the whole Empire would have benefited. But the effect of Government enterprise means a very long span, which means expensive cabling and slow cabling. A long span costs inordinately more than a short span. Not only that, but in giving evidence before the Committee at the time this cable was contemplated, and again when I spoke in public, I said it would be the only British cable cut when war broke out because it went out of the route of commerce, and being out of the route of commerce any raider would not be interfered with. What happened in the War? The cable was cut and it was the only British cable that was cut. It was cut for six months and a considerable loss was incurred. Right up to 1915, as the result of the Government enterprise taking this cable by a long span on to Australia, we incurred a loss and the British taxpayer had to make that loss good. No private company would have contemplated such a route.
My right hon. Friend spoke as if there was some special merit about an All-Red cable from the strategical point of view. There is no merit whatever. What we desire from the strategical point of view is that the cable shall follow a commercial route, and whatever is useful to commerce will be useful to the Navy as well. I had hoped when they duplicated this cable they would have taken the common-sense method of landing at Honolulu, a busy port through which British shipping goes, and so we should have had an alternative route by the American cable as well. We have here a monopoly cable which is practically restricted to Empire enterprise only. It can only land cables at Empire stations. I turn to Clause 8 of the Bill. I see:
The Board may, subject to the approval of all the partner Governments, undertake as agents for and at the expense of the Governments of any parts of His Majesty's Dominions any work in connection with telegraphic communication whether by means of cables or by means of wireless telegraphy within the sphere of their operations or within the Caribbean area.
I should like to ask if it is possible for these cable companies to operate outside the British Empire, because you are excluding private enterprise, and what we
desire is to have a monopoly of cables, just as we have a large monopoly of shipping, and it is from the date when all this red agitation1 started that we began to lose our monopoly over the cable systems of the world.

Mr. AMERY: As far as the powers conferred by the Bill are concerned, there is nothing to prevent the Pacific Cable Board operating anywhere in the Caribbean area.

Commander BELLAIRS: Had it been private enterprise, it would have been of great assistance to British shipping, because nearly every foreign port carries a predominance of British shipping, and it is one of the disadvantages of associating these things with the Government that you stand in the way of progress to a degree which is hardly estimated and which I am sure the right hon. Gentleman opposite has no conception of.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: I should like to ask the Minister a question or two. The Second Schedule provides that, if all the partner Governments so agree, the salary paid to the chairman may exceed £l,000 a year. What are the conditions of employment of this chairman? I also see that
There shall be paid to every other member of the Board who does not hold such office of profit as aforesaid such salary not exceeding £300 a year as the Board may determine.
What are the conditions of employment? What hours have they to work? How many hours a day and how many days a week? Or is it a part-time job? This is getting rather alarming in this British Empire of ours, because I do not follow the idea whether you call it the British Empire or the British Commonwealth of Nations. A rose by any other name smells as sweet to the working class who are always on the verge of starvation, and it is them I am speaking for to-day. You would not think, when we are discussing such a Bill as this, when we have been lectured time and time again from that Treasury Box about economising, that this country could afford to pay certain wages. It has been stated there that this country cannot afford to give the working class a comfortable living, yet here, without any compunctions of conscience, the Colonial Secretary suggests
5.0 p.m.
that the chairman of this Board is to get as much wages in a year as an engineer gets in eight years, or a miner in 10 years, and yet this is the same Government that used all its influence to crush the miners down to accepting starvation wages. How long is the House going to stand this? They are always telling me that there is no such thing as classes. I am told I am always making a mistake when I say there is a class struggle in society. I have an open mind, Come let us reason together. I am here to reason with the Minister, to see if he can give any proof to me that there is not a class struggle in society. When one of my class, a working engineer, presents himself for a job, the conditions of his work are laid down to him. It is stated how many hours he will have to work, and that, if he makes a mistake, he will get a right "telling-off," and the chances are he may get the sack. I want to know if this chairman, who is to get £l,000 or more a year, and the members of this Board, have conditions laid down to them in the same manner as are laid to the working classes? Have I to go away again confirmed in my belief that there are two distinct classes in society, not in France, or Germany or Russia or China, but here? The class I represent have to turn out to work every morning, register when they go in and when they come out, and the amount of work they turn out is not judged by themselves but by someone else. Will this chairman have to come under the same category as my class? Will he require to attend to his duties and give of his very best? Will he be required to embody his entire personality in it? Or is this going to be another case of simply giving a job to some friend of the present Government, some Tory who has done good work for the party, or to some late Member of the Labour party, who has sold out to the Tory Government? If these questions are not answered in a satisfactory manner, I may be prepared to put further questions.

Mr. MAXTON: I am sorry that the House is not showing a greater interest in this very important Measure. We from the Glasgow area are intensely interested in it, for historical reasons first of all. The first submarine cable that
was ever laid in any part of the world was really laid from the laboratories of Glasgow University by the late Lord Kelvin. Probably he was a fellow-countryman of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, but I do not hold that against him; he was a great man in spite of that. Since then the citizens of Glasgow have been always keenly interested in the development of submarine cables. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Seaham (Mr. Webb) that the party on these benches have some satisfaction in seeing this Measure of absolute, definite public ownership and control being brought before this House by a Tory Minister of State. But the very fact that it is a great experiment in public ownership and control is a very strong reason why we on these benches should see that it is started along lines which will make for success, that will make it of real value to the users and a model as to the way in which it treats its employés, because we are not anxious to hear that standing argument which is always brought against Socialism and public ownership. Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, when they want to bring a strong argument against Socialism and public ownership schemes, always tell us that the present publicly-owned schemes are failures, and that you never get from a publicly-owned enterprise the same service that you can get from a privately-owned one that is run for profit. I am prepared to agree that our public services, directed and controlled by Governments who do not believe in public ownership, have not given the general satisfaction that those of us who are interested in the success of public ownership would desire that they should have.
Is it surprising that publicly-owned enterprises should fail when the higher command and direction have always been in the hands of men who desire that they should fail? If the right hon. Gentlemen of the Conservative Cabinet do not believe that public enterprise can be made a success, then they do not set out, in shaping any public enterprise, in the right frame of mind. If they assume necessary failure before they start, they are very likely to have failure as a result. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs explained that this was not a profit-making scheme;
he said that it was for service, not for profit. Presumably, that is why the community is going to be allowed to handle it. If it had held out any prospects of real profit, then probably private enterprise would have taken care that that profit went into the hands of capitalists and not into the hands of the whole community. Therefore, this scheme, I presume, will not be judged by the profits it can show, but by the service that it renders to this nation and to the other partners in the concern. One thing should be carefully watched in launching this enterprise. It is true that the State official who is in charge of an enterprise that is partly commercial and partly in the nature of public service, is hampered in his work by the fact that he has not frequently that freedom of initiative that he ought to have. I would like it to be made certain that the directors of this company, because it is simpler to speak of it as a company, although it is publicly-owned, should have the same freedom of initiative, the same independence of control, as an ordinary board of directors of an ordinary private company would have. That does not mean to say that they are to be left to control it in whatever way they please, but that, between one shareholders' meeting and the next, they are not subject to petty interference.
I presume that the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) are fairly correct, namely, that the directors of the Pacific Cable Board will be mainly decorative people. They will not go laying cables or sending messages, but they will probably meet three times a year. The Suez Canal directors, I gather, do not meet at the Canal every afternoon. I cannot imagine the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Horne) taking a hand in opening the sluicegates. From the comparative regularity of his attendance here, I assume that the meetings of the Suez Canal Board are not so frequent as to prevent a person having other interests and other activities. I am assuming that the members of this Pacific Cable Board are only going to be called upon to provide the company with their very special, very expert, and' presumably very rare knowledge about four times in the year. If there was a monthly meeting, the
directors union would be probably protesting about overwork, and I presume that four times a year will be as frequently as this Board will be called upon to meet. Have we anything like an assurance that the responsible man and his subordinates in this publicly-owned company are to have some freedom of initiative to carry on the work, for which they are actually responsible without unnecessary interference? I agree with the criticism against public ownership; that the whole thing may be rendered stupid, futile, and useless if every day the men who are running it are to be interfered with. There is no need that that should be done to the people who are actually doing the work of this company and who have all the rights, powers and initiative that an ordinary board of directors would grant to their trusted employés. I do not want to say too much about remuneration. By custom it has been well established that £l,000 payment to the chairman of a company is not an inordinate sum. The hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs does not seem to be able to understand that this type of intelligence which the chairman of a company must have and always does have—

Mr. BUCHANAN: Four times a year; £250 a week.

Mr. MAXTON: It is not a question of how often he exercises that great intelligence but it is the fact that he possesses it. It is like the Wild Birds Protection Bill. The rarer it is, the more you must treasure it and stimulate it. A thousand pounds a year, I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton Burghs, is practically what might be called the standard rate for that class of work. I am strongly inclined to vote against the Second Reading on the ground that it is proposed, quite lightheartedly, to hand over these sums to these people before we have had any description of the duties that are to be undertaken by them. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman may have some satisfactory explanation, but at the moment it is of interest to notice how very easy the Government are prepared to come forward and ask for £l,000 for this one man, for this spare-time work. Only last night there was
tremendous excitement in the House because a board of guardians in Chester-le-Street had paid a woman 8s.
At Question Time to-day there was a question about a new Inspector-General of Constabulary who has been appointed to a new job at 57 years of age and £1,000 a year. He retired seven years ago, presumably having exhausted his usefulness, on a pension of £600 per annum. Now, the Home Secretary appoints him to a more responsible post, although he is seven years older, at a salary of £1,000 a year, rising to £l,500, and he is to be pensionable again when he retires. Two weeks ago, when we were discussing the Air Estimates there was a question about the Chief of the Civil Aviation Department who was drawing a salary of £2,000 per annum out of the public purse and at the same time acting as director of a petroleum company. I want to be quite sure that if this Bill is to be assented to, we are not assenting to the reckless use of public money to assist the political friends of the Government that happens to be in power. It is an old gibe that the British Empire was a great system of outdoor relief for the impoverished sons of the upper classes. I do not want to see a great experiment in public ownership and control spoiled by the appointment to decorative posts of a number of people who are probably unable to earn an honest living in the ordinary fields of enterprise.
While it is safeguarded in the Second Schedule, paragraph (8), that the members of the Board and the chairman of the Board shall be persons who do not hold any offices of profit under the Crown, there is nothing to prevent such persons from holding offices of profit anywhere else so long as such a person does not hold an office of profit under the Crown he is permitted to hold any position. Such a person may be the director of 12 private companies and, as we have found it in other cases, he may be the director of a company whose interests may be in antagonism to the interests of the public Board which he is controlling. He may be a member of any other private company, and the only thing from which he is debarred is the holding of some office of profit under the Crown. I want to be assured that not only is he not to hold an office of profit under the Crown but that
he is not to be a person who is drawing pension after having retired from an office of profit under the Crown.
I have seen on other occasions a great predilection in favour of appointing retired Judges to chairmanships. There is a superstitution that a retired Judge is a man with some special aptitude for chairmanship. He may be. He has sat in the chair long enough, and slept in it frequently enough, to know all about chairs; but is he the type of person who has a commercial mind, who has driving force and will not be content in carrying out in a humdrum way the cables already there, but will use this scheme as a basis on which to extend the cable system in every way and to extend its usefulness? I would like to see this scheme which is, in the main, a good thing, looking forward not only to an all-red group which, as has been said, arouses international antagonism—because when you are out purely to establish a British Empire industry you are inciting other countries to form an alliance against you—but I would very much like to believe that it is only the basis of a great internationally-owned telegraphic service in which not merely should there be four partners, consisting of Great Britain and three British Colonies, but that the nations of the world interested in this business should be equal co-partners in it and taking an interest in promoting its efficiency and success.
Did it ever strike the right hon. Gentleman that in all the Bills we produce, the remuneration of the fellows at the top is always safeguarded by Statute? Come what may, the man with a thousand a year as a living wage is secure. He can rely upon that salary. Well or ill, working or idle, eating or sleeping, he can count on getting his salary, by Statute. The whole force of the Imperial bond is put behind the man at the top: the decorative man. In connection with this business, there will be telegraph boys, operatives, cable men, linemen, engineers, seamen, presumably a cable ship will be required; but from the beginning to the end of the Bill there is not one scrap to safeguard the livelihood of these people who will be actually performing the service. I know that we cannot complicate the Bill with a whole lot of unnecessary and unimportant details, but is the question of the livelihood of the people who are going to run the industry an unim-
portant detail? Is that an unimportant detail in the eyes of the Government? It is a most important thing in the running of any industry that the persons engaged in it, the persons who are doing the hard necessary work, should have something like a definitely assured livelihood. If there had been even some general Clause saying that fair wages would be paid to the workers in the industry, I would have regarded it as being a Measure which desired to be fair as between one class and another; but when I find that the chairman of the Board and the members of the Board have their remuneration very carefully safeguarded and there is not even one general side reference to the workers, whether they be messenger boys, operatives, engineers, linesmen or seamen, I am strongly impressed with the fact that although the right hon. Gentleman may have become an academic Socialist, or, having regard to his early reputation he may have reverted to the academic Socialism of his earlier years, and while he may have earned the claim to that distinction, or have re-established a claim to it, he has not that conception of Labour and Socialist freedom which I am glad to say I have, and which I wish to further in this House.

Mr. STEPHEN: I notice that the right hon. Gentleman and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury show no disposition to give any answer to the questions which have been put to them. We shall require an answer before we are prepared to give this Bill a Second Reading. I am not convinced that this Bill, which has been described as a Socialist Measure, is a Socialist Measure. One hon. Member opposite had some question in his mind about the route that is to be taken. The idea seemed to be that there is no profit in it for private enterprise. The hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone (Commander Bellairs) had some idea that private enterprise might have found profit if the route had been different, and there was a sort of pathetic, hungry look about his face when he spoke to-day which seemed to suggest that there was, possibly, something which has been lost to private enterprise in this connection.
In Clause 1 (2) there is a statement about "the representatives of the Board of His Majesty's Government." Is this some new form of Cabinet that has been
introduced? "The Board of His Majesty's Government." Possibly, it is another instance of the bad draftsmanship which has characterised Government Measures. In future the Government will have to make their phraseology a little more clear to show what is meant. Paragraph 7 of the Second Schedule says:
Any representative member of the Board may appoint a deputy to act on his behalf at any meeting of the Board at which he is unable to be present, and if a deputy has been so appointed and his appointment notified to the Board he shall be entitled so to act, and, while so acting, shall possess all the powers of a member of the Board.
It seems that the members of this Board are to be able to say to any other person, "You might go and take my place at the meeting of the Board." That is not conducive to good and efficient business, and if this is an experiment in Socialism, and inter-Imperial Socialism at that, we must have matters safeguarded as fully as possible. We are evidently going to have a chairman at a salary of not less than £1,000 a year, and when I read those words "not exceeding £1,000"I wondered whether an attempt was being made to revert to the practices which prevailed in the days of Walpole when there were plenty of jobs found for the supporters of the Government. We have had people appointed to the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Electricity Board, and now there is this Board to be set up. Evidently an attempt is being made to provide for needy supporters of the Government. I am rather curious to know what restrictions will be placed upon the chairman, whether his job is to be a full time job or not, and how much time those associated with him are going to give to their duties for their £300 a year. This House would be foolish to assent to the proposal that the members of this Board shall be able to hand over to any deputy the work of carrying on the business of this company.
It is suggested that the representatives on the Board of the Government shall be appointed by the Treasury. The Treasury will have something to do with the first appointment, and possibly they will be able to appoint sound careful people, but will the deputies to whom they may hand over the business be first-class men. I do not think that is a satisfactory way of
doing business. Is the Treasury going to have any say as to whether the deputy is a satisfactory person? The member of the Board might himself be all that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury could desire, but while the Treasury may approve of him, it does not mean that the Treasury will be able to approve of his friends and relatives. Nearly everybody makes undesirable acquaintances in his lifetime, and this House should require a little more explicit information from the Minister in order to ensure that the interests of this inter-Imperial and experimental brand of Socialism in this Bill are not going to be destroyed by some incompetent friend of a gifted gentleman approved by the Treasury. I hope we shall get a satisfactory reply, otherwise the only alternative is to go to a Division in order to make sure that we are not taken as being assenting parties to an experiment which is not going to be run on proper lines.

Mr. AMERY: By the leave of the House I will answer in a few sentences the questions that have been put to me. May I again remind hon. Members that this Bill represents an agreed Measure between all the Governments interested in the Pacific cable. As regards the remuneration of the members of the Board it follows the agreement already arrived at more than two years ago between the right hon. Gentleman for Derby (Mr. J. H. Thomas) and the Dominion Governments. The Dominion Governments at that time asked for remuneration for members of the Board, not because such remuneration will be usually required, because in most cases they are servants of the Crown, but in case one or other Government might wish to appoint some business man outside the staff of the High Commissioner's Office and would have to pay at any rate the minimum that would induce a director to serve. As regards the chairman, the Dominion Governments were anxious that the salary paid should be such as would secure the services not merely of a retired civil servant, who would add £600 to his pension, but which would secure the services of an active, able business man, and there is no question of the absolute limitation on the chairman to do this work and no other work at all. You would not secure under ordinary conditions a man to manage an immense undertaking of this sort for
£1,000 a year. I might add that the figures here—and this answers the point of the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) as to the pay of other employees —are limiting figures. They fix the limit beyond which remuneration shall not be paid.

Mr. MAXTON: Not so far as the chairman is concerned.

Mr. AMERY: Yes, if the hon. Member will allow me. The chairman's remuneration is limited normally, but there is a special provision that if the partner Governments agree that it is desirable, they may go beyond that limitation. It is an exception to the normal limitation. The Board meets normally every month, but when special business has to be done it meets more frequently. The chairman, of course, has to be in attendance a good deal oftener. The hon. Member for Bridgeton asked if the Board has reasonable freedom of action. That is so. It conducts the ordinary business of the Pacific cable as a commercial undertaking without interference. If, on the other hand, new questions of policy arise, if they wish to construct a new cable or enter upon any new sphere of activity, naturally it would have to ask permission of the various Governments. The hon. Member also asked a question with regard to the employees of the Board. I am glad to be able to assure him that the terms are satisfactory in every way. It is impossible to lay down set terms for men who are employed in England, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, but everything is done for their comfort, and in the outlying stations special provision is made for their comfort, while social recreation is provided at the cost of the Board, which also makes a contribution towards the pensions fund. In this respect I think everything is satisfactory.

Mr. MAXTON: Before the right hon. Gentleman concludes will he tell me this. The Board is to meet monthly. Where is it to meet? Is it to be domiciled in this country?

Mr. AMERY: The Board is domiciled in London, and all its members are usually within very easy call.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.—[Mr. Amery.]

CROWN LANDS (No. 2) BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Guinness): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
The administration of Crown Lands is governed by a long series of Acts which in certain respects are out of date and need to be modernised. In recent years there has been a revolution in law affecting real estate from which Crown Lands have been generally speaking left out. Crown Lands are deprived of the facilities generally enjoyed in connection with land under the Settled Land Act of 1925, and it is necessary for the more efficient and profitable administration of these estates that these facilities should be extended. The Bill will amend the powers of the Commissioners of Crown Lands in a great many detailed particulars. I cannot pretend that there is any general principle running through the Measure. I can, therefore, only draw attention to a few of the more important Clauses. The Commissioners of Crown Lands are, for most, but not for all purposes, only able to act technically as individuals. The Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries is a "corporation sole," the other Commissioner is an individual, and it is desirable to avoid certain difficulties in appointing new Commissioners by constituting the Commissioners a body corporate. That is the object of Clause 1. Clauses 2 and 3 codify the powers of sale and generally copy the provisions of the Settled Land Act. The only material extension of the powers of the Commissioners for the purposes of sale is the provision made that they may sell for a rent charge.
Clauses 4, 5, 6 and 7 deal with leases, as to which the present powers of the Commissioners are restricted. The most important change is that it will enable them to grant leases for general purposes for terms up to 100 years. Clauses 9, 10 and 11 will enable the Commissioners to make grants of land for the improvement and general benefit of other Crown lands, and Clause 12 extends the powers of leasing certain houses in the Royal Parks which are now under the Commissioners of Works. The power of leasing these houses is now limited to certain cases provided under the Act of 1851. Houses
left under the Office of Works in the Royal Parks cannot be leased because the Office of Works has no power and is not a Revenue Department, and it is proposed, with His Majesty's consent, that houses may be transferred from the Commissioner of Works to the Commissioners of Crown Lands and in exchange other houses may be transferred back subject to adjustment by the Treasury. Clause 15 would repeal the exemption from Stamp Duty which applies to transactions about Crown lands and which is of very doubtful value to the facilitating of such transactions. This exemption causes a considerable loss of revenue, and there seems to be no reason why those who buy or lease land from the Crown should be exempt from a normal charge. Clauses 19 and 20 would transfer to the diocesan fund concerned certain ecclesiastical funds for which the Commissioners of Crown Lands now act as trustees. I do not think I need trouble the House with any of the other Clauses. I fear that my unlearned mind is incapable of illuminating so technical a Bill, but the House will perhaps find compensation in the presence of my learned Friend, the Solicitor-General, who is quite willing to explain any legal points.

Mr. NOEL BUXTON: It appears to me that very little interest can be got out of a Debate upon this Bill, which is a business Bill, and although the history of the Crown lands is full of interest, and if we surveyed what led to past Acts of Parliament in connection with them it would bring us to extraordinarily thrilling periods of history, yet there is nothing in this Bill except what is rather dull business. But I would note that, whereas in regard to the last Bill before the House we were welcoming a new departure in Socialism, we are here dealing with a very old established form of Socialism. Crown lands are a model to me of the way that land should be dealt with, and this Bill, if it does nothing more, puts the administration of the Crown lands in order. I understand that the Bill is to go to a Select Committee, and therefore some of the highly technical points in it will be better dealt with there. But I want to ask the Minister one or two questions. In Clause 10 I notice that there is power to grant land for public and charitable
purposes. That seems all to the good, but in lines 36 and 37 I see the expression;
For the construction, enlargement or improvement of any railway, canal, road (public or private).
I do not quite see why it is appropriate to put in the words "or private." Perhaps the Minister will give us a reason, which must, I think, be rather a special one. In the main the improved power given in the Bill seems to me to bring the administration of the Crown lands into harmony with the provisions prevailing in regard to other trust land, and to adapt the principal methods of the Settled Land Act, which is a voluminous Act of 120 Clauses, and the Law of Property Act, which has over 200 Clauses; and it has certainly been an inconvenience to the Commissioners of Crown Lands to have to deal with the anomalies which are removed by this Bill. In the main, of course, the Bill is an illustration of the peculiarities of legal language. For instance, some fun might be derived from such an expression as this in line 9 on page 3:
Every sale shall be made for the best consideration in money that in the opinion of the Commissioners of Crown Lands can reasonably be obtained.
It is very comic to suppose that any other principle has, up to now, been followed in administering the Crown lands. One might find one or two other parallel expressions peculiar to the lawyers. For instance, on page 5 it is laid down that a building lease shall be made in consideration of the lessee agreeing to erect buildings. That does not seem a very novel idea to apply when you are letting land. But these obvious expressions are perhaps to be expected in a lawyers' Bill like this. Clauses 9 to 11 embody very valuable principles—assistance to public bodies in regard to water supplies, and particularly to some modern developments such as village institutes, reading rooms, working men's clubs and so on. I confess that I was under the impression, when I had to do with woods and forests, that there were such powers, but I suppose in fact it has been difficult to act in accordance with modern land ownership in these respects, and, if so, it is certainly valuable to have these pro-visions made legal, because the Crown ought to be a model landowner.
All land-owning ought to be regarded as a trusteeship, and the Crown set an example some 20 years ago, particularly in model administration of land in connection with small holdings. This is carrying out a policy which was both economic and social and publicly beneficial under the new administration of Crown lands which began about 1907. When we come to Clauses 12 and 13 it seems a formal matter to provide for exchange of properties which involve no financial difference to the revenues of the estate; and in Clause 15 we have fortunately a case of improved revenue in respect of Stamp Duty. Clauses 19 and 20 remove an anomaly, and as I dislike anomalies very much I think it is certainly worth while, though business can be carried on without these Clauses, to put things in order and allot the administration of property where it ought to be allotted. I have nothing more to say, because there is no criticism to be made of a Bill which cannot be regarded as controversial in any way. It is a technical Bill and it is appropriate that it should go to a Select Committee. With that understanding I would like to support the Bill.

Lieut.-Colonel V. HENDERSON: I wish to ask the Minister one or two questions about the Bill. The Estimates Committee, in the second Report which they made to the House last year on the question of the co-ordination of common services, drew the attention of the House to the fact that a Committee had been set up in 1921, known as the Howard Frank Committee, which was set up for the purpose of finding out whether it was possible to concentrate under one Department all work in connection with the sale and management and survey of Crown lands. That Committee reported in 1922, but no action of any kind has ever been taken on any of its recommendations. The Estimates Committee drew the attention of the House to that fact, and the Treasury in one of the minutes which they issued in reply, explained that the matter, so far as the State management of Crown lands was concerned, would remain as at present. What they said was:
As the Committee were informed in a letter addressed to your Secretary on 11th June last, so far as the State management of Government lands and buildings is concerned, the existing arrangements, under
which the various Departments are responsible for their own estate management, are to continue.
So far as the other recommendations of the Committee are concerned no explanation has ever been given as to whether the Government propose to act on them or not. I would be grateful if the Minister would explain to me to what extent, if any, this Bill embodies certain of the recommendations of the Howard Frank Committee. It appeared to me that it did embody the recommendation' with regard to sales of Government land being concentrated in one Department; but there is one point to which the Estimates Committee attaches importance, and that is the possibility of all surveys being also concentrated in one Department. At present there is a separate survey department, which works quite apart from the Crown Lands Department, and if the Howard Frank Committee, who were to a large extent an expert and technical committee, were under the impression that you could economise and get greater efficiency by concentrating these departments and concentrating more of the work to be carried out by one department, I would like to know why the Government are not taking any action on the matter. It is possible, of course, that it may be concealed some where in the Bill and that I, having no technical knowledge, may not be able to find it; but as the Minister's statement was so brief I shall be grateful for some information on that point.

Mr. JOHNSTON: I wish to ask the Minister a question. I understand that the Bill gives power to the Commissioners of Crown Lands to dispose of their property, to sell it, to denationalise the land, or such land as they have. In Clause 21 it is stated that no such sale shall be permitted, unless with the assent of the Treasury, where the property is of a value over £1,000. The experience we have had of the disposal of publicly owned property under the present Government does not seem to warrant us in giving them any further power than that which they already have to dispose of property. In Clause 3 there is what appears to be of the nature of a safeguard:
Save as hereinafter provided, every sale shall be made for the best consideration in
money that in the opinion of the Commissioners of Crown Lands can reasonably be obtained.
6.0 p.m.
"The best consideration in money." We had a case discussed in this House within the past week of a property and stock bought for £43,000, and disposed of for £9,000,000. It was made the subject of Debate in this House. I refer to the estate of Erribol, and as this Bill applies to Scotland, we are entitled to have from the Minister in charge some further particulars as to what safeguards this House and the public are to have against the disposal of valuable public property for mere fictitious sums. I do not think the House ought to make it easier for this Government, or any Government, to dispose of national property through the agency of gentlemen called Commissioners of Crown. Lands. We should not allow those gentlemen to be the sole judges of what is the best consideration in money to be given for State property. Before this House confers on the Government any further powers or rights to dispose of publicly owned property, I trust we shall have adequate information as to what guarantees are being afforded in this respect.

Mr. HARDIE: This Bill was introduced by the Minister with a very brief summary of its contents. We on this side had hoped that a more careful explanation would have been given of a Bill of this nature, dealing with national property. Even one of the hon. Members opposite who put a question to the Minister explained that the Measure was so technical that more information was to be expected in regard to it. Running through the Bill is the phrase "the best rent that in the opinion of the Commissioners of Crown lands can reasonably be obtained." What is meant by "best rent"? Does that mean that the nation as the owner of Crown lands will allow unnatural conditions, which bring about high rents in adjacent localities to determine the rent of Crown lands? Is a false market to be a determining factor in settling what is the best rent, or are we going to have a reasonable method of assessing what the value is and of adopting that value, no matter what the rent may be on any other lands? Are we going to allow the individual who is taking the land to have it at a natural
rent? Are we going to allow him to get the benefit of that rather than allow a market which may be false to determine the rent?
Clause 7, which deals with mining leases, raises a very important point and one which is more important to-day than it has even been, because of the recent coal stoppage. The Prime Minister promised that great changes were to be made in regard to mining, but the right hon. Gentleman in discussing this question has always told us that he has no power to deal with privately-owned mines. Now, presumably, we have Crown land containing coal, because provision is being made in this Bill concerning it. Why is it, since the Prime Minister has promised that there will be an improvement in relation to mines, both underground and above ground, that there is no provision in this Bill, in regard to mineral-bearing Crown lands, to carry out such improvements? What is to be the difference, in the case of the Crown lands, as regards such matters as the needless desecration of the surface? The nation, as the owner of these lands, ought to give a lead by saying that wherever minerals are sought or got upon Crown lands certain conditions shall be observed. Here is where the nation possesses that power, which the Prime Minister during the coal stoppage said he did not possess—the power of enforcing Regulations in regard to mining. Here we have our own mineral-bearing land and, in view of the enlightenment which has been shed during the last 25 years on the science of mining, why are we not taking a step in advance and away from conditions which we know to be thoroughly bad? Why is there nothing in the Bill to regulate the sinking of shafts on Crown land and to see that it is not done as it is ordinarily done in what we call mining to-day—though I do not call it mining at all? Why should we continue to have unsightly heaps and conditions as to atmosphere which make it unhealthy even to live near these mines? If there is any sincerity in the Prime Minister's expressed desire to see things improved, be is at the head of the Government and these lands are under the direct control of the Government, and he should take
steps to have inserted in this Measure some provision for the improvements which I am now indicating.
Why should Crown lands, in connection with minerals, be saddled with the same difficulties as privately-owned lands? There should be some stipulation in connection with the leases proposed in Clause 7 ensuring that the person working minerals on Crown lands should not be subject to the conditions obtaining in the ordinary privately-owned coalfields. For instance, wherever it is necessary to remove water to the surface there should be a Regulation ensuring that all water so drawn to the surface by the primary power shall be properly dealt with when it is released on the surface, and shall not be allowed to flow into someone else's mineral workings. I can give cases where water has been pumped at a high cost out of one pit and allowed to go into another pit. The two pits belonged to different individuals, and there was neither comings nor goings between them. The owner of the other pit had to pump out all this water, in addition to dealing with the water-carrying strata in his own pit. We claim to be enlightened in this year of grace, and we ought to learn from what has taken place in the past. There ought to be something in this Bill which would be an index of the fact that as a nation we are moving forward in the light of known facts. But there is nothing in this Bill to show that there is going to be any difference as between mining on Crown lands and mining on other lands. I hope the Minister in charge will be able to get some more information on this point, and that he will be able to promise even yet that some provision can be inserted in the Bill to prevent the unsightly things which we find in the ordinary mining areas. What we are told about the rent is very interesting. The Bill states that the rent
may be made to vary according to the quantities of any mineral or substance gotten.
What is to be the determining factor? Is the price of this mineral to be the marketable price? If a man takes the land when the market is down to its lowest, is he to have it at a rent which will enable him to get all the benefit when the market rises again and deprives the nation of any of that benefit? Is it
going to be fixed on market price or on the basis of the utility of the mineral itself? I suggest to the Minister that if he wants to get a fair basis in regard to ungotten minerals, he should take the advice of some of the Government Departments now engaged in business who will be able to tell him about the values of particular minerals. In that way we can get a proper basis but I object to the idea that the market price of any given mineral, coal, iron, pyrites or whatever it may be, ought to determine the rent of the land for the purpose of working the minerals. I had hoped that the Committee which was dealing with the technical side of the Bill, would have tried to find some basis for a workable agreement which would apply generally. We know that minerals do not all lie in the same way and are not all of the same value. You may travel a hundred yards across a fault in strata and find as much difference in the conditions as there is between daylight and darkness. What is to be the determining factor in conditions of that kind? I do not know whether hon. Gentlemen opposite are smiling at what I am saying or at something else; but I would point out that it is this circumstance which gives their best argument to certain mineowners who say their mines do not pay. There is not any mine in the country where the shaft is properly sunk, which under proper arrangements has not paid handsomely when it has been getting coal, but the system is bad, and the Government are falling into the same groove. Evidently they propose to fix the rent in regard to minerals on an outside basis.
These are the nation's minerals which are being dealt with in the Bill and in the interests of the nation and from a business point of view we ought to consider these points; We can give an impetus to trade by providing that these leases shall be given at the lowest possible rents and that we shall only take from the leases that which will meet the necessary costs of the administration of the land. But there we have to guard against the danger that those who take up the leases may take all the profit. How are you going to do that? How are you going to prevent the person who is taking out the minerals from running away with the benefits which you want for the whole community and for industry generally? I will suggest a way. Every
ton of coal which he gets would carry a market value. In that market value there should not be included more than the average normal rate of getting coal. Then the market price rules the rest and beyond these two factors you could not add anything to what you had given him in the form of a cheap rate for working the minerals. The Minister might have saved a great deal of questioning had he given a fuller explanation of these Clauses. Take, for instance, a simple thing like the dedication of streets and open spaces. The Bill is full of legal phraseology, which to my lay mind may mean three or four different things, and I suppose to the legal mind may mean 300 or 400 different things. Clause 25 which refers to the application of the Measure to Scotland, states that
The power to sell shall be construed to include power to grant a feu and the expression 'easement' shall mean 'servitude.'
I notice a representative of Scotland on the Front Bench, and perhaps he will explain whether there is a complete balance as between these legal terms, or whether there is a difference which is against Scotland. I do not think that "feu" is meant by "easement." [HON. MEMBERS: "NO."] But then the Bill says that the power to sell is to be construed to include the power to grant a feu and that the expression "easement" shall mean "servitude." Does the word "servitude" equal "easement" as far as Scottish law is concerned? When it comes to the power to grant a feu, is this feu going to be outside the ordinary practice in relation to feus? I contend that national lands ought to give a lead in the right direction.

Mr. MARDY JONES: I was very disappointed at the opening statement of the Minister of Agriculture in explaining the main Clauses and features of this Bill. It is 'true that he confessed that he did not know anything about the legal aspects of the Bill, and many of us are in the same position, but it appears to me that the Bill affects not only Crown lands, such as land that may be suitable for agricultural or building purposes, but there are very important provisions dealing with the contents of the earth's crust, with minerals, all of which may be more or less valuable. I think this Bill is so
important and so large in its scope and possibilities, and that it sets such a precedent for future action by any Government, that the first thing the Government should have done in introducing it to-day was at least to have shown the courtesy to the House of fully informing it as to what is the extent, the acreage, the nature, and the situation of the Crown lands which we now hold. For aught that this Bill says to the contrary, all the Crown lands which we own may not be worth a tinker's curse. On the other hand, they may be worth a great many millions of money, actual or potential, and I think the House is being treated with great discourtesy by the Government not having prepared a careful statement giving the extent of the Crown lands, where they are situated, in what counties they are to be found, and how much of the land is suitable for agricultural purposes and building purposes, and how far it is possible that some of it might be set aside for municipalities for town planning, housing, and other purposes.
We ought to have an expert estimate from the appropriate Government Department as to what is the possible extent of minerals under Crown lands in the country. I am not aware of any official papers which disclose this very necessary information, and we are asked practically to give this Tory Government, which is the stalwart of private landlordism, an absolutely blank cheque—to a landlord Government—to do as they like with the Crown lands of this country. There is complete power in this Bill either to lease or to sell any minerals which are owned as Crown property, and we have not been told what is the extent of the mineral reserves that may lie under or on the Crown lands. There is Crown land scattered up and down the country, much of which has been bought from time to time for Government purposes by various Governments, much of which is land that has remained in the Royal possession for centuries. Some of that land, we know, contains coal, and surely this House is entitled (to know the) approximate estimated coal reserves under these Crown lands.

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present; House counted; and, 40 Members being present—

Mr. JONES: When we were interrupted, I was trying to impress upon the Government that they ought, as a matter of courtesy, to let us know the value of the Crown lands, and if the Departments are not prepared to give us that information to-day, if this Bill is to be sent to a Select Committee, I seriously ask that they should prepare a statement which will be available for that Committee to consider, and, of course, for Members of the House also. I attach very great importance to that data, which can be supplied, and the Government ought to be well aware of what is required. I would like to draw attention to Clause 2, which deals with the powers of sale of Crown lands, and states:
The Commissioners of Crown Lands—

(i) May sell any Crown land or any easement, right or privilege of any kind over or in relation to Crown land; and
(ii) Where any Crown land comprises a manor, may sell the seignory of any freehold land within. the manor, with or without any exception or reservation of all or any mines or minerals, or of any rights or powers relative to mining purposes, so as in every such case to effect an extinguishment of the manorial incidents."
That sounds to be a very legal Clause, but I think it is one of the most important Clauses in the Bill, because it attempts to deal with the question of private or public ownership of land and minerals. Some of the lands we own to-day have come to the Crown in a peculiar way, and it would be a very interesting thing indeed to get a historical explanation of what lands are to-day Crown lands because of these things, and why most of the land of the country that once was Crown land has been stolen from the people and is now owned by private landlords. May I also point out that this power to sell the land and the minerals is one which we, on this side of the House, shall resist to the utmost?
I want some information with regard to the coal reserves that may be underneath some of these Crown lands in some of the coalfield areas of the country. I want to know what is the approximate reserve of such coal, because, if that coal is there in large quantities, I think it is time that the Government seriously considered getting at that coal, developing it, and running a few public mines as an experiment as against the private enter-
prise mines in the country. The Prime Minister was good enough, during the coal dispute, to say that his Government stood for peace in industry. If we have large reserves of coal under some of these Crown lands, here is an excellent opportunity for the Prime Minister and his Government to sink shafts right away, to develop this coal, and to find out whether he cannot put the peace and good will about which he preaches into these few mines as an example to the coalowners of this country. I can assure him that, when he undertakes such a step, he will have no difficulty in finding miners to work such coal seams. There are figures to-day showing that some hundreds of thousands of miners are still unemployed, and many of them victimised men, who are not permitted to resume work in the pits in which they have hitherto been employed, not because they lack the skill to work as miners there, but because before the stoppage they were loyal to their fellows and have become marked men and been refused employment by these concerns.
If we can develop some of these coal reserves in this way, the Prime Minister will have a happy opportunity of employing some of these men. If he has any difficulty in getting miners from Scotland or England, I can give him enough, from my own Division alone, of victimised men to work every coal seam he can get. I can give him from the Llanelly Colliery in the Pontypridd Division about 120 men who have been employed for from 10 up to 40 years in that one colliery, working the coal seams in that mine, who are no longer employed. One of them has been a banksman of this one colliery for 37 years, and here are men with experience and skill and with knowledge prepared to work the Crown coal seams. I, therefore, hope the Government will seriously consider experimenting in this direction. I am well aware that it would be contrary to their ideals of private ownership and private enterprise, that it would be a departure for a Tory Government to do anything of the sort, but it would be a good experiment to make, and if the Prime Minister were present I know that, with his large-heartedness and broad-minded desire to do the right thing, he would boldly do this kind of thing.
There is another aspect of this Clause to which I wish to draw attention. The mining property that is in these Crown lands may, as I have said, be leased or sold outright under this Bill. We object to that as a fundamental principle, that any Crown lands with valuable minerals in them should be sold to private enterprise at all, because we think, on the other hand, that they ought to be publicly developed. In the absence of a statement showing the situation and extent of these Crown lands and minerals, we have no means of testing whether the statement would include all the lands that are really public property. Let me give an illustration, by what is known as the Herbert Grant. That was a grant of public land made by the father of King Edward VI in 1551 to the Earl of Pembroke. It is known, and the deed discloses, that this land covers six Royal manors in six English counties, and six Royal manors in six Welsh counties, and many of these Royal manors were given away in this document. It is still a moot point whether that was a legal Statute or not. There are many other parts of the country where it is a moot point whether the land is public or private property, and until we get a proper statement of the Crown lands we do own, and which this Government recognise as public property, we are not in a position to know how to proceed in the matter.
Then, we are told, that in the provisions of this Bill for the leasing of minerals, the royalty system is to obtain and, as in Clause 8, there is provision for "Separate dealing with surface and minerals, with or without wayleaves." Here, again, I think the Government have an excellent opportunity to try to improve upon the practice of private landlords in this direction. In the Sankey Commission's Report and in the Samuel Commission's Report a great deal of stress was laid upon the yield of the mineral royalty system. It has been frankly admitted by both those impartial Commissions, on the evidence submitted to them, that the royalty system is a serious burden upon the efficiency and productivity of the mining industry of this country. In this Bill, the Government are deliberately maintaining and perpetuating the evils of that system by imposing wayleaves on minerals worked
underground. It may not be familiar to many Members of this House what way-leaves really mean in this connection. There are surface wayleaves and underground wayleaves. The surface wayleave is usually one of payment per ton of the mineral that is conveyed from the property of one landlord to that of another, with the necessary process of putting on the market the coal and other minerals. The underground wayleaves are a much greater burden than the surface way-leaves. Not only are tin, iron ore, coal and other minerals worked underground in this country in large quantities, but they are worked, of course, from different properties going into the same mine, and minerals that are gotten in one property underground and cat only be brought to the surface through the property where the mine is actually situated, have to pay a wayleave, not for anything done, but for mere permission for the coal or other mineral to pass from one property to the other underground.
We say that the Crown should not maintain that evil system. There are not only wayleaves for permission to convey minerals from one property to another. In all our coalmines, in many of our iron-ore and tin-mines, we have what is known as water wayleaves. Many mines are subject to huge quantities of water which are liable to flood the mines unless properly drained away, and it has been proved before the Sankey Commission and the Samuel Commission that this water problem, the proper drainage of mines, is a serious, hindrance to the efficiency of production, and increases the cost of the production of coal. We say, here is an opportunity in this Bill for the Government to set an example to the private landlords and private owners of wayleave rights, to insist that the wayleaves, as such, should be absolutely abolished, and that provision should be made for the proper drainage of the mines, and so on. But there are other wayleaves underground in addition to those I have mentioned. There are what are called "air wayleaves." Very often in coalmines it is necessary to cut a tunnel or passage merely for the passage of air to ventilate the mine. When that passage goes from the property of one landlord to that of another, the landlord, who has never seen the mine or been near it, and knows nothing about the water
or air in the mine, has the power to compel that colliery company to pay him a royalty on every ton of coal that comes through that area, for permission to allow the air to pass through the rocks. I say that the whole system of wayleaves is an abomination, and for the Crown to perpetuate this abomination does not say much for their so-called efficiency and intelligence. I think this Clause will have to be amended in Committee upstairs.
Then I would ask for information as to how much the Crown now gets in royalties for minerals worked on Crown lands, how much of this is what is usually known as the royalty on the output tonnage and the acreage worked, and how much is in the form of wayleaves for water, air, and so on? Then I would like to ask the Government about one point on which I am not quite clear. I gathered from the few remarks of the Minister of Agriculture that the Crown lands in certain cases involve the public ownership of buildings on some of those lands. We are not given any indication as to what is the extent of those buildings, or where they are situated, but, in so far as buildings go with the land, I want to know from the Government why they have not made a provision in this Bill for the rating of Crown buildings on such Crown lands. We are well aware that Crown property is not rated in the way that private property is rated.

Mr. SPEAKER: We cannot go into that now. The rating law raises a different question.

Mr. JONES: I certainly shall abide by your ruling, but I also want your guidance on this point. Before you came to the Chair, the Minister of Agriculture made a statement as to the main provisions of this Bill. I may be mistaken, but I understood him to say that on some of these Crown lands there are Crown buildings.

Mr. GUINNESS: There are provisions for the Crown to lease land for building, and, as the hon. Member knows well, there are many Crown estates in London where there is very extensive house property.

Mr. JONES: But, in addition, I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say
there were in some cases on these Crown lands Crown buildings in the occupation of the Crown.

Mr. GUINNESS: There are buildings on the Crown lands, and, of course, the occupier pays rates.

Mr. JONES: That is just the point I want to get at. I am not quite sure that the occupiers of Crown buildings on Crown land do pay rates in every case. My information is that there are a number of public buildings which are not paying rates. I think it is true to say that throughout England and Wales none of the Government buildings which are used by Ministers' Departments—

Mr. GUINNESS: If the hon. Member is thinking of Government offices in the occupation of public Departments, they do not come under the Office of Crown Lands.

Mr. JONES: Shall I be a little more specific? There are Royal palaces in this country built and occupied upon Crown land. Do those Royal palaces pay the rates of the locality? My information is that they do not.

Mr. DENNIS HERBERT: On a point of Order. May I ask whether it is possible for anything in this Bill, under the Title of the Bill, to do anything to affect the law realting to rating—cither to impose rates upon or relieve property owners?

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is it not possible that in regard to the Clause dealing with leasing, this may have a very material effect?

Mr. SPEAKER: In my opinion the hon. Member is going now beyond the scope of the Bill. Rating law is quite a separate matter, and cannot come in under the present Bill.

Mr. JONES: I certainly submit to that ruling quite readily, but I was under the impression that when the leases were to be considered it would necessarily involve that subject. But if it cannot be raised, of course we must leave it at that. I would again stress as a final point, that the Government Departments which are concerned in this matter ought to supply this House with a very full statement of the Crown lands we do own. I would like to know what is the total acreage of that land, whether
it is agricultural land, whether suitable for building, or whether mineral land, or anything else; whether it is inland or on the shore, or wherever it may be. We are entitled to know what are the minerals contained in that Crown land, whether there is gold, and whether that gold can he got at by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in time for the next Budget. We have, at any rate, gold in the land of Wales, and quantities have been produced. Some of it has been placed on the Table of this House by a Member of this House. Where it has gone I do not know. Certainly there is a great deal of tin in the Crown lands of this country, a great deal of iron-ore, a number of minor minerals, and I have reason to believe there is a great deal of coal in some of the Crown lands. We are entitled to know, therefore, the value of this land as far as it can be ascertained by the experts in the Government Departments, and I hope that a full statement will he prepared right away, and made available to the members of the Committee the first day they sit, and to all the Members of this House. When we reach that stage, we may then be in a position to see how far these Clauses affect Crown property, and I hope the Tory Government will turn completely round, get away from their concern for private rights, and start to protect the public rights in public property.

Mr. STEPHEN: I feel it is impossible to begin my remarks without a few words of protest, as a Member representing a Scottish constituency, that we have been treated in this fashion by the Scottish Office. There is a Bill coming before this House for the reorganisation of Scottish Departments, and it seems, from the way we are treated in this House, that it is more necessary to get a Bill for the reorganisation of the Government representatives of Scotland, because it seems impossible to get them to attend to their business here. Everyone will agree that this is a very important Measure, and yet we have got no representative of the Scottish Office present. I see there is a Junior Lord of the Treasury who represents a Scottish division, and I notice that he also seems to be given the duties of a scullery maid. He had to go out
and get a quorum for the House when attention was called to its absence a little while ago. I do not think it is treating Scottish representatives here properly, that there is no representative of the Scottish Office on the Treasury Bench.
I am sorry, as the hon. Member who preceded me said that the Minister of Agriculture cannot be congratulated on the way in which he introduced this Measure. It is quite obvious he did not know anything about it. He fumbled about, jumping from Clause to Clause, reading a few words out of the Bill. It is not good enough that a Minister introducing a Measure like this should fumble in the way he did, and then say to hon. Members, "You cannot expect an unlearned man to say anything about this Bill." That is not in keeping with the dignity of the Government or the House of Commons. The hon. Member who preceded me suggested that we ought to have a Memorandum showing the extent of these Crown Lands, and that it ought to be ready for the Select Committee on the first day on which it meets. I suggest to the Minister that he ought to withdraw this Bill to-day. If he is going to be responsible for conducting this Measure through Parliament it is only fair to the great office he holds and to the agricultural industry that he should be himself informed about its provisions. I know he has said we are to have the assistance of the learned Solicitor-General, but this is my first experience of a Minister openly and blatantly confessing that he is ignorant of a Bill which he is submitting to the House. I do not think that will conduce to the efficient carrying on of business here. If he had prefaced the Bill with a brief Memorandum it would have been to his own advantage as well as to the advantage of the House. The Government are ready to economise in small things, though not in the things that really matter, but the few pieces of paper required for a Memorandum and the printing involved would not be very expensive. Certainly, such a Memorandum would have been very helpful to His Majesty's Government, and God knows they need all the help they can get.
As I understand it, the purpose of the Bill is to arrange for the Commissioners of Crown Lands to be put into the posi-
tion of a Corporation. The Minister of Agriculture, when making his non-illuminating statement said with a good deal of pride that he would be the Corporation sole. I am glad it is only that, and not a Dover sole, or anything else fishy, such as the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries might be supposed to be. If anyone wishes to interrogate the Corporation about any transactions will the right hon. Gentleman be the Minister responsible to the House of Commons? In Clause 21 it is stated that there will require to be Treasury authorisation for all purchases or sales where the purchase money exceeds £1,000, and consequently I am a little doubtful whether the Treasury or the Ministry of Agriculture will answer for the Corporation in the House. Perhaps the Minister could let me know that now.

Mr. GUINNESS: The Bill does not make any change in the present system. The hon. Member is no doubt aware that there are two Commissioners—a permanent Commissioner, and the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries in virtue of his office. The Bill does not alter that. It merely provides for incorporation.

Mr. STEPHEN: I think I have got it a little more clearly now. This Measure would afford the Minister a good opportunity of carrying through the centralisation we would like to see, making one Minister responsible for the whole of the Crown lands. I suggest to the Minister it would be a great advantage all round if that were the case.
Having made these complaints I would like to ask whether it is not the case that one purpose of this Measure is to make the sale of Crown lands more easy? What exactly is it that the Government hope to get out of this business? What are going to be the advantages to the community if this Measure be placed on the Statute Book? Will it mean that the Crown lands, the property of the community, are going to pass more readily into the hands of other people and become private lands? If that be so, I suggest to the Government they might have arranged to hand them over to the Disposal Board, which has disposed of so much public property on advantageous terms to anybody except to the people of this country.
In Clause 10, under the heading
Power to grant land for public and charitable purposes,
I see that among the charitable and public purposes for which land may be granted are
the construction, enlargement or improvement of any railway, canal, road (public or private), dock, sea wall, embankment, drain or watercourse.
I do not think the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues will be surprised when we say we are suspicious about words like that and what they may cover. The land is to be granted at a "nominal price or rent." Why should Crown lands be granted at a nominal price or rent to a private railway company? It is quite true that people interested in a railway company may have a good deal of political influence, but why should they be granted land at a nominal price? They ought to pay a proper price, if they are a private company. I am sorry we are not going to divide against this Measure. [Interruption.]

Mr. BUCHANAN: Speak for your own party.

Mr. STEPHEN: I gathered from the statement from our Front Bench, when our own representative was explaining the Measure, that we do not regard it as a controversial Measure, that it is simply a technical Measure; but things which are regarded as technical by this House may afterwards work out very much to the detriment of the working class. I do not like this Measure at all. I do not want to do the Minister of Agriculture any injustice, but surely before the House agrees to give a Second reading to this Bill we should have some indication of the extent of these Crown lands or some indication of what is regarded as the possible area of lands transferred either by purchase or by lease. So far there has been only an attempt to wrap the whole subject in mystery, to tell us it is a technical business and that only the Solicitor-General for England has any knowledge about it. [An HON. MEMBER: "And he will not speak."] I think the Solicitor-General for England will speak. What annoys me is that neither the Solicitor-General for Scotland nor the Lord Advocate will speak, and much as may be the knowledge of the Solicitor-General for England about English law I do not
7.0 p.m.
think he will claim to be an authority on Scottish law. As far as this discussion has gone and as far as the Minister of Agriculture is responsible for it, I think that the only decent, straightforward thing for the Minister to do is to move the Adjournment of the Debate and bring forward this memorandum giving the House some idea of the amount of land that may be put into the charge of those corporations and also much more clearly indicating what the powers of those corporations will be.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I beg to move, "That the Debate be now adjourned."

May I ask if I would be permitted now to move the Adjournment of the Debate to call attention to an important matter that affects Scotland? We have no representative of the Scottish Office or of the Scottish legal system present in the House, and, in view of this important fact, may I move the Adjournment of the Debate in order that some representative should be present?

Mr. SPEAKER: I will put the Motion under the Standing Orders forthwith.

Question put, "That the Debate be now adjourned."

The House divided Ayes, 135; Noes, 262.

Division No. 66.]
AYES.
[7.4 p.m.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)
Salter, Dr. Alfred


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Hardie, George D.
Sexton, James


Alexander, A V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Harris, Percy A.
Shepherd, Arthur Lewis


Amnion, Charles George
Hayday, Arthur
Shiels, Dr. Drummond


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Hayes, John Henry
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Barr, J.
Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)
Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)


Bondfield, Margaret
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Smillie, Robert


Briant, Frank
Hirst, G. H.
Smith, Rennie (Penistone)


Broad, F. A.
Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)
Snell, Harry


Bromfield, William
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip


Bromley, J.
Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)
Spencer, G. A. (Broxtowe)


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Spoor, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Charles


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Stamford, T. W.


Buchanan, G.
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Stephen, Campbell


Cape, Thomas
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Strauss, E. A.


Charleton, H. C.
Kelly, W. T.
Sullivan, J.


Clowes, S.
Kennedy, T.
Sutton, J. E.


Cluse, W. S.
Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.
Taylor, R. A.


Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Kirkwood, D.
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)


Compton, Joseph
Lansbury, George
Thomson, Trevelvan (Middlesbro. W.)


Connolly, M.
Lawrence, Susan
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Cove. W. G.
Lawson, John James
Thorns, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Dalton, Hugh
Lee, F.
Thurtle, Ernest


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Lindley, F. W.
Tinker, John Joseph


Day, Colonel Harry
Lowth, T.
Townend, A. E.


Dennison, R.
Lunn, William
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.


Duncan, c.
Mackinder. W.
Viant, S. P.


Dunnico, H.
MacLaren, Andrew
Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.
Webb, Rt Hon. Sidney


Fenby, T. D.
Maxton, James
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Joslah


Forrest, W.
Montague, Frederick
Wellock, Wilfred


Gardner, J. P.
Morris. R. H.
Welsh, J. C.


Gibbins, Joseph
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Westwood, J.


Gillett, George M.
Naylor, T. E.
Wheat[...]ey, Rt. Hon. J.


Gosling, Harry
Owen, Major G.
Wiggins. William Martin


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Paling. W.
Wilkinson Ellen C.


Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.)
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Greenall, T.
Pethick-Lawrence. F. W.
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Lianelly)


Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Coine)
Ponsonby, Arthur
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Potts, John S.
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Windsor, Walter


Groves, T.
Riley, Ben
Wright, W.


Grundy, T. W.
Ritson, J.



Hall, F. (York, W. B., Normanton)
Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W. R., Elland)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Rose, Frank H.
Mr. A. Barnes and Mr. Whiteley.


NOES.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Astbury, Lieut.-Commander F. W.
Barnett, Major Sir Richard


Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.
Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent, Dover)
Barnston, Major Sir Harry


Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)
Atholl, Duchess of
Beamish, Bear-Admiral T. P. H.


Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l)
Atkinson, C.
Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)


Applin, Colonel R. V. K.
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Barclay-Harvey, C. M,
Berry, Sir George


Betterton, Henry B.
Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)
Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.
Nicholson, O. (Westminster)


Bird, E. R. (Yorks, W. R., Skipton)
Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter
Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hon. W.G.(Ptrsf'ld.)


Blundeil, F. N.
Greene, W. P. Crawford
Nuttall, Ellis


Boothby, S. J. G.
Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)
Oakley, T.


Bourne, Captain Robert Croft
Grotrian, H. Brent
O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)


Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.
Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.
Penny, Frederick George


Braithwaite, Major A. N.
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Brass, Captain W.
Harland, A.
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Hartington, Marquess of
Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)


Briggs, J. Harold
Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)
Pitcher, G.


Briscoe, Richard George
Haslam, Henry C.
Pilditch, Sir Philip


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Hawke, John Anthony
Price, Major C. W. M.


Broun-Lindsay, Major H.
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Radford, E. A.


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'i'd., Hexham)
Henderson, Capt. R. R.(Oxf'd,Henley)
Raine, W.


Buckingham, Sir H.
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)
Ramsden, E.


Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.
Rawson, Sir Cooper


Burgoyne, Lieut.-Colonal Sir Alan
Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.
Rees, Sir Beddoe


Burman, J. B.
Herbert. Dennis (Hertford, Watford)
Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y.ch'ts'y)


Burton, Colonel H. W.
Herbert, S. (York, N.R., Scar. & Wh'by)
Roberts, Sir Samuel (Hereford)


Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward
Hills, Major John Waller
Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)


Calne, Gordon Hall
Hogg, Rt. Hon.Sir D. (St. Marylebone)
Ropner, Major L.


Campbell, E. T.
Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy
Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.


Carver, Major W. H.
Holland, Sir Arthur
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Cassels, J. D.
Holt, Captain H. P.
Salmon, Major I.


Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)
Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)
Sandeman, N. Stewart


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord H. (Ox. Univ.)
Hopkins, J. W. W.
Sanders, Sir Robert A.


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn.Sir J.A.(Birm.,W.)
Hopkinson, Sir A. (Eng. Universities)
Sanderson, Sir Frank


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)
Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.
Sandon, Lord


Chapman, Sir S.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustavo D.


Charteris, Brigadier-General J.
Hudson, R. S. (Cumberl'nd, Whiteh'n)
Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W.R., Sowerby)


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Hume, Sir G. H.
Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl.(Renfrew,W.)


Churchman, Sir Arthur C.
Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Shepperson, E. W.


Clarry, Reginald George
Huntingfield, Lord
Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belf'st.)


Clayton, G. C.
Hurd, Percy A.
Skelton, A. N.


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Hutchison, G. A. C.(Midi'n & Peebles)
Smith, R. W.(Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.
Smith-Carington, Neville W.


Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir G. K.
Jackson. Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen'l)
Smithers, Waldron


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Jacob. A. E.
Somerville, A, A. (Windsor)


Cope, Major William
Jephcott, A. R.
Sprot, Sir Alexander


Cooper, J. B.
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)
Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.)


Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L.
Kindersley, Major Guy M.
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)


Craig, Ernest (Chester, Crewe)
King Captain Henry Douglas
Storry-Deans, R.


Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.


Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)
Lamb, J. Q.
Streatfeild, Captain S. R.


Crookshank, Cpt. H.(Lindsey, Gainsbro)
Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R.
Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C.


Cunliffe. Sir Herbert
Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Curzon, Captain Viscount
Little. Dr. E. Graham
Styles, Captain H. Walter


Davidson, J.(Hertf'd. Hemel Hempst'd)
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser


Davidson, Major-General Sir John H.
Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid


Davies, Maj. Geo. F.(Somerset, Yeovil)
Loder, J. de V.
Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)


Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
Looker, Herbert William
Tinne. J. A.


Davies, Dr. Vernon
Lougher, Lewis
Titchfield. Major the Marquess of


Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Dawson, Sir Philip
Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman
Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.


Dean, Arthur Wellesley
Lumley. L. R.
Wallace, Captain D. E.


Duckworth, John
MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen
Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L.(Kingston. on-Hull)


Eden. Captain Anthony
Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)
Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.


Edmondson, Major A. J.
Maclntyre, Ian
Warrender, Sir Victor


Edwards, J. Hugh (Accrington)
McLean, Major A.
Waterhouse, Captain Charles


Elliot, Major Walter E.
Macmillan, Captain H.
Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)


England, Colonl A.
Macnaghten, Hon, Sir Malcolm
Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)


Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)
McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John
Watts, Dr. T.


Everard, W. Lindsay
Macqulsten, F. A.
Wells, S. R.


Fairfax, Captain J. G.
MacRobert, Alexander M.
White, Lieut.-Col. Sir G. Dairymple-


Faile, Sir Bertram G.
Maltland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-
Williams, Com. G. (Devon, Torquay)


Fanshawe, Commander G. D.
Malone, Major P. B.
Wilson, Sir C. H. (Leeds, Central)


Fermoy, Lord
Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn
Wilson, M. J. (York, N. R., Richm'd)


Fielden, E. B.
Margesson, Captain D.
Wilson, R. R. (Stafford. Lichfield)


Finburgh, S.
Marriott, Sir J. A. R.
Winby, Colonel L. P.


Foster, Sir Harry S.
Meller, R. J.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Foxcroft, Captain C. T.
Milne, J. S. Wardlaw-
Winterton. Rt. Hon. Earl


Fraser, Captain Ian
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)
Wise, Sir Fredric


Fremantle, Lt.-Col. Francis E.
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Wolmer, Viscount


Gadie, Lieut.-Col. Anthony
Moore, Sir Newton J.
Womersley, W. J.


Ganzonl, Sir John
Moreing, Captain A. H.
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Gates, Percy
Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)
Young, Rt. Hon. Hilton (Norwich)


Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham
Murchison, Sir Kenneth



Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Nall, Colonel Sir Joseph
TELLERS FOR THE NOES—


Glyn, Major R. G. C.
Nelson, Sir Frank
Mr. F. C. Thomson and Captain


Goff, Sir Park
Neville, R. J.
Lord Stanley.


Grace, John
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)

Question again proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Commander WILLIAMS: One of the reasons given by the Minister of Agriculture why this Bill should be given a Second Reading will not really help some of us to look at the Bill with any more favourable eyes. There are some good parts in the Bill, but,, when we are told that this Measure is necessary because some years ago an unfortunate Government passed the Law of Property Bill, which was one of the worst Measures brought into this House and has added an enormous burden on many people and on industry, I do not think it is any recommendation of the present Bill. But I would like to draw the Minister's attention and the attention of the House to what I believe is one very good Clause, namely, Clause 9 of the Bill. Under that Clause powers are given to those who have authority to deal with Crown lands to lease to the local authorities land to enable them to develop their various water schemes. I think everyone in the House will agree that it is up to the Crown authorities not only to carry out the letter and the spirit of this particular Clause but also to do everything humanly in their power to see that they really encourage this development by the local authorities. There is one thing that it is necessary to do. Anyone who has any dealings in connection with the land, and more particularly the Crown authorities, should do everything in their power to encourage local authorities to give the very best water supply they can for the health of the community they rule. I hope the Minister in his dealings with this matter will urge those who have this power to use it in the spirit of the Clause.
My hon. and gallant Friend the hon. Member for Bootle (Lieut.-Colonel Henderson) raised a point in connection with selling land and co-operation between the various Government Departments. I would like to point out that it is over four years since we have had a report with a recommendation, as I understand it, that you should amalgamate in one Department the selling of various Crown lands and the dealing with these lands. That was d6ne as an economy. Over four years have gone by, and since that time there have been good Governments and a very bad one, but that does not really justify this most important economy being held up all this time. I
should like some assurance that this is going to be done in the immediate future if it is possible.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: The Minister of Agriculture, when he brought in this Bill, stated that it bristled with legal technicalities, and, being a suspicious Socialist, as far as the Tory Government is concerned, I at once cast my eyes over this Measure. I am afraid the idea is to create an atmosphere in the House. We are told what is in this Bill does not matter very much, that it is a question that will require to be hammered out by the legal fraternity, and that it is not a question for the lay mind at all. That is simply a smoke screen thrown up in order that the Government may get away again with some of its mean tactics to steal the land of Scotland from the people. There are reasons why we should have those suspicions, because I noted at the beginning of this Debate that the Secretary to the Treasury was on the Treasury Bench, and he is the representative of the Chancellor of the Exchequer of all men in the world. I have a suspicion he was there looking after the interests of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because I feel sure the right hon. Gentleman will have great difficulty in balancing his Budget. No doubt the Chancellor thinks that this is a chance of raising money by selling the land of Scotland, which I am sure he would be ready to do in order to balance his Budget. We do not stand for that on these benches.
We do not believe that this is a simple Bill, and we do not believe, as we have been told, that it does not mean anything. I am pleased to see that a representative of the Scottish Office has arrived, and I am sure he will back me up in telling the Minister of Agriculture that Scotland is not for sale. I feel sure that if the Germans understood their business they could have negotiated with the Tory Government, and hon. Members opposite would have been ready to sell our country to Germany. We have further evidence that this Government is not to be trusted with the land of our forefathers, and our country is not safe as long as the present Tory Government is in power. Not only the people of Scotland but the people of England and Wales are up in revolt against this robber Government, This band of robbers has seized our land and they would fain make us exiles, but we
are not going to have it. We can give instances showing that the Scottish Office is not to be trusted in this matter because they are Tories, and they are not the friends of the working class in Scotland. We have had an example recently in the sale of the Erribol estate in the Highlands by the Government. What did the Government do in that case?

Mr. SPEAKER: The estate referred to by the hon. Member does not come under Crown lands and it is not affected by this Bill at all.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: Surely I am entitled to use that as an illustration. I appeal to your sense of justice, Mr. Speaker. I said to my colleagues before I rose that on this question I should not be allowed to travel as far as other speakers. I merely gave an illustration of how the Government acted not last year but within the last week or two. The Scottish Office disposed of that estate and sold it at much less than its proper value. It was shown by the Government valuers that the estate was worth £17,000 and it was sold by the Government at a private sale for £9,000. I have given that illustration because I fear that that is what they may do in regard to all the Crown lands. I understand that it is only a figure of speech to call them Crown lands because it really means the land belonging to the people. As a matter of fact all the land of Britain belongs to the people, and you cannot sell the land in the ultimate because it really belongs to the King who represents the people.
It is evident that something has happened to cause the Government to bring in this Bill. I am not one of those who believe that the Tories are a lot of stupids. I believe the present Government is able to tap the best brains in this country, but they use those brains to the disadvantage of the people of Great Britain for the aggrandisement of the few and the rich whom the Tories represent. I know this Bill is not introduced simply for fun, but in order to enable the Government to carry on for a certain length of time. There is beneath all this a deep sinister movement, and I know this because I am closely watching their actions. All these Bills are being brought forward with a view to counteracting the possibility of a Labour Government coming into power, and this Bill has been intro-
duced simply for that purpose. To-day the power behind the throne is advising them to put Bills through quietly so that the Labour party will not notice what they are doing. This Bill bristles with legal technicalities and they say to themselves, "The Labour party mean well and they will accept this Measure because they are so generous." I think we are too generous in dealing with hon. Gentlemen opposite. I want to know exactly what is behind this Bill.
If the Government are so anxious about the land why do they not give it to the unemployed? In this country at the present moment we are faced with the terrible problem of unemployment, and it is bound to get worse, and there is no power on earth can change that state of things as long as the Tories are in power. My opinion is that under the present Government we shall have more unemployed, and all the reorganisation of industry that is going on really means more unemployment. If the Government were really concerned about the interest of the people of Britain, and if they were really honest in their endeavours to make ours an Imperial race, then they would not ask for power to sell the land that still belongs to the State. There is an agitation to send our people abroad across the wild Atlantic to foreign shores, and for this purpose the Government are ready to provide the shipping companies with subsidies to help our people to obtain free land anywhere else except in their own country. If they were in earnest, seeing that we are faced with the unemployment problem, which is going to be worsened by the reorganisation of industry, why do not the Government organise these Crown lands and put the unemployed on our own land—our native land? Instead of that, the actions of this Government are depleting the population in our rural districts all over Britain. In Scotland we find in the last census that the only industry that has increased in population has been that of the game-keepers. Game was the only thing in which there was any increase on the last census.

Mr. SPEAKER: I think I have been very patient with the hon. Member. He really must come to the Bill we are discussing. We cannot discuss subjects in general on a Bill of this kind.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: I have got to bow to your ruling, and will do so. I am
still at the Bill. I am anxious that those Crown lands will be retained in the hands of the people. On the last Bill that we discussed here to-day the plea was against private ownership. The plea then was that the State should take over the Pacific cable; and here we have the same Government, on the same day, coming with a Bill to do away with the State owning the most essential thing for the people—the land. That is proof that this Government has no principles whatever other than profit—selfish gain. Why were they in favour of the cable being taken over by the State? Because there was no profit in it for them. How they want this Bill in order that they may sell the land to individuals to make profit out of it. The Crown lands are still in our hands—

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is now repeating himself and those who preceded him. There is a Standing Order, No. 19, which says that Members must not repeat their own or one another's arguments.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: I am very anxious to safeguard my native land, and I do not want this Government to get the power to sell any more of it. Not so very long ago we had a ball in Inverness of the rich individuals who have bought off large parts of the Highlands, and at that ball was an Indian Rajah—

Mr. SPEAKER: This time the hon. Member must resume his seat.

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir Thomas Inskip): The Debate has ranged over a very wide field, and some hon. Members, I am afraid, have taken the opportunity of discoursing about a number of things which are apparently but indirectly connected with the main purpose of this Bill. The hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) asked a question which I will pay him the compliment of saying was a very relevant one —more relevant, perhaps, than some that he raised. The question that he asked was, What are the advantages which the Government hope to bring about by this Bill The answer is, the better administration of Crown lands, more facilities for the public in connection with the administration of Crown lands, and, incidentally, possibly, an increased revenue owing to the improved administration of the lands
about which we are speaking. I hope that that will answer the hon. Member's very relevant question.

Mr. MAXTON: Which Clause is that?

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: The whole Bill. I should like also to correct a misapprehension under which I think some hon. Members have been labouring, that this is a Bill which deals with what may be called Government lands or Government buildings. Crown lands are not the same thing as Government lands. I am sure hon. Members opposite are aware of that, and perhaps, if they had borne it in mind, some of the questions that have been asked would not have been raised.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Can you give us any idea where these Crown lands are?

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: I can give the hon. Member some indication where these Crown lands are. Perhaps I may be allowed to say that the 104th Report on Crown lands and their administration was recently published, and I should have thought, judging from the industry and interest which hon. Members have shown in connection with this Bill, that they would have resorted to the Library when the Bill was introduced on the 14th March, and would have ascertained from this most interesting Report that the Crown lands are situated in England, Scotland and Ireland, that the number of acres of Crown lands in England is 69,500, of which so much is agricultural land and so ranch urban land, and the rest of it. I am sure that, if I were to detail at greater length the extent and character of the lands, hon. Members opposite would have less patience than I am sure they will extend to me.

Mr. MARDY JONES: Is there any of that land in Wales?

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: Yes, there is some of that land in Wales. Inasmuch as the 104th Report of the Commissioners of Crown Lands will give hon. gentlemen all this information which they are so anxious to obtain, I think economy of time will make it necessary for me to refer them to this most absorbing document. [Interruption.] It is not a Command Paper. I will replace this particular copy in the Library, and the hon.
Member shall have an opportunity of seeing it in about half an hour's time—or even now, if he wishes.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Hear, hear! Pass it now.

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: By all means. Perhaps I might answer one or two of the more relevant questions that have been raised. I should like to explain, first of all, however, that the Bill is an amending Bill, but to some extent it may be described as a codifying Bill, that is to say, it brings up to date a great deal of legislation, some of which is repealed in the Schedule to the Bill. It amends the old law by giving new powers more in accordance-with the modern practice, and a great many of the GIause:3, as my right hon. Friend explained in introducing the Bill, arc modelled, if not exactly copied, from the Settled Lands Act, 1925, which is the latest embodiment of the proper practice relating to settled land. I think the right hon. Gentleman who was Minister of Agriculture in the late Government recognises that to that extent the Bill is no doubt worthy of examination before a Committee, but is not proper for detailed discussion in this House, in the sense that it covers a very large range of proposals of a very technical character.
Some criticism has been directed against my right hon. Friend on account of the brevity with which he introduced the Bill. I am bound to say there is no pleasing some hon. Members. I think that if my right hon. Friend had spent time in a detailed and technical exposition of the various Clauses of the Bill, hon. Members would have been just as dissatisfied as they are now. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO!"] In reference to the exposition of the Bill, which hon. Members will enjoy, it will, if the necessary Motion be agreed to by the House, be referred to a Select Committee, where there will be ample opportunity of examining it Clause by Clause; and it will then come back to a Committee of this House after its examination by the Select Committee. Therefore, if possible, the opportunities of understanding this Bill are greater than is usually the case with most legislation introduced into this House.
I should like to answer one question which was raised by my hon. and gallant
Friend the Member for Bootle (Lieut.-Colonel Henderson) and I think also by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Torquay (Commander Williams). The question was whether the recommendation of Sir Howard Frank's Committee on Crown and Government Lands had been carried into effect. The only recommendation that I have found relating to Crown lands is that the division of the management of Crown lands between two Commissioners should cease. That has been carried into effect, and there is now no division between the powers of the two Commissioners. I think my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Torquay was under a misapprehension when he spoke about the amalgamation of all the Departments concerned with the sale of departmental or Government lands. Sir Howard Frank's Committee dealt, not only with Crown lands, but with Government lands, and the amalgamation of the Departments for the sale of Government lands has nothing to do with this Bill. Other questions were raised of, if I may say so with respect, less relevance. The hon. Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie) and the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. Mardy Jones) asked some questions relating to Crown lands that have minerals beneath them. It could hardly have been expected that this Bill, dealing with Crown lands, should have contained an up-to-date mining code. That is a subject for another Bill altogether, if it be necessary, but I may call attention to the fact that last Session we spent considerable time in, I hope, improving the opportunities for avoiding some of the evils to which the hon. Member for Springburn referred.

Mr. HARDIE: May I point out that, whenever a lease is made, that is the point at which you put forward the con ditions under which that lease is to be held?

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: That is quite true, and when there is legislation dealing with mining leases then will be the proper time to consider questions of that sort.

Mr. HARDIE: You are absolutely wrong there.

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: I know the hon. Member thinks everyone is wrong except himself.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: How can the hon. Gentleman expect us to accept the statement that they look after their interests when we know that is the same Government that imposed an extra hour a day on the miners?

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: This Bill might just as conveniently embody a great many Regulations for the building of small houses as for the management of mines. It is not intended for that purpose. Although I quite recognise that there are many admirable proposals hon. Members might be able to put forward in connection with the management of mines, and the granting of leases of minerals, this is not the occasion on which it is convenient to deal with them.
The late Minister for Agriculture asked a very small question on. Clause 10 as to why private roads were included within a Clause which creates a power to grant lands for certain purposes. When a private road is going to be taken over by a local authority, very often a condition is made that it shall be put into proper condition, shall be made up and widened, and have its corners taken off. It is quite likely that the only way to make a private road into a condition in which it is fit to be taken over would be by the grant of some portion of adjoining Crown lands. I am suggesting that as merely one illustration of an occasion on which it would be proper for the Commissioners of Crown lands to make a grant for the purpose of making a private road suitable for taking over by the local authority. The right hon. Gentleman called attention to what he thought was the very legal phraseology of Clause 3, where it is provided that every sale shall be made for the best consideration in money. Of course, it is necessary to have a provision of this sort. If hon. Members opposite had lived 300 years ago, they would possibly have known that a sale was not made for the best consideration. This Government, which is responsible for what is happening in this year of grace, thinks it desirable to put in a Clause that every sale shall be made for the best consideration possible. Even if the Commissioners of Crown lands did think of selling part of Scotland, the proceeds of the sale would not go into the pocket of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but would be invested in stocks which would repre-
sent, I quite agree very inadequately, the part of Scotland which had been sold. The hon. Member may, however, reassure himself that there is no likelihood of any part of the Crown lands in his country being parted with unless there is a very good public interest requiring that to be done.

Mr. MARDY JONES: Will it be brought before the House before it is done?

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: I cannot give that undertaking. This House has a great many labours to perform, and, if it was to be asked to consider and approve every transaction relating to the sale of a half an acre or an acre of land, which happens to be Grown land, I am afraid the other business of the House would suffer.
I have not referred to some questions which have been raised, as for instance in connection with what are more probably described as Government lands, because they do not come within the scope of the Bill. The Crown lands are the hereditary possession of the Crown which were long ago surrendered in return for the grant of the Civil List. It is no good entering into a discussion of questions which relate not to Crown lands but to wholly different lands which we generally speak of as Government land. I have been asked whether "servitude" is the same as "easement." Hon. Members from Scotland thought a Scottish law officer should be here to answer that question. I do not know that there is any more reason why a Scottish law officer should be able to say that "servitude" is the same as "easement" than that an English law officer should be able to say "easement" is the same as "servitude." We are neither of us acquainted with both legal systems, but I have asked the Solicitor-General for Scotland. He and I, have put our heads together and have come to the conclusion that "servitude" is the same as "easement." I hope now the House will give us the Bill on which we have had a long and detailed discussion.

Mr. MARDY JONES: I take it that Clause 8 makes provision for the way-leaves that may be charged on the working of minerals for Crown lands. The hon. and learned Gentleman has just told us that these Crown lands are what is
left of the hereditary lands of our Royal system. That being so, is this not an opportunity for the Government to depart from the system—

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has exhausted his right to speak.

Mr. WILLIAM ADAMSON: We are discussing a very important Bill which requires more discussion than it has yet received. I was hoping, when the Solicitor-General rose, that we should have had a much fuller explanation of the Measure than he has given us. It is a very technical Bill and one that I think the legal mind is better qualified to deal with than a layman like myself and others who have taken part in the discussion-There is a considerable amount of misapprehension in the minds of Members in this part of the House. I have been disappointed with the brief way in which the hon. Gentleman has dealt with the Clauses of the Bill. Apart from answering some questions which have been put to him, all he has told us is that it is an amending and codifying Bill for the better administration of Crown lands. As I understand it, it deals with the lands which have been handed over by the Crown to the State in respect of which a certain payment is annually made and that these lands are under the administration of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. The Bill proposes to continue to give the powers of administration to these Commissioners, and those powers include the power to "sell, exchange, lease or make other authorised disposition." It proposes to give the Commissioners the same full powers with regard to the mines and minerals contained therein. Clause 8 says:
With or without an exception or reservation of all or any of the mines and minerals therein or of any mines and minerals, and in any such case with or without a grant or reservation of powers of working, wayleaves or rights of way, rights of water and drainage and other powers.
That is continuing in the hands of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests a very great power indeed.
The Bill also applies to Scotland. As I understand it, it applies only to what are known as the Crown lands of Scotland, which are under the administration of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, and a large amount of agricultural land which has been purchased by
8.0 p.m.
the Scottish Office for small holdings and for purposes of that kind is not included in the Bill. The reason my hon. Friends were so anxious that a representative of the Scottish Office should be present was that our minds should be perfectly clear on the matter. We had doubts as to whether it was purely what are known as Crown lands, or if it included the power to sell the agricultural land which in the course of years has come into the possession of the Scottish Office. The Scottish Office is one of the biggest landowners in Scotland, and in the course of the years we have been purchasing large quantities of lands and letting them out in small holdings to a large number of small holders, though not as large a number as many of us would like to see. Consequently we were very anxious to know whether these lands which are in the possession of the Scottish Office were included in the provisions of the Bill. Personally, I do not think they are, but I have no legal training and I do not profess legal knowledge. Consequently, I would like to be assured that I am right in assuming that they are not included in the terms of this Bill. If I understood the learned Solicitor-General aright, and if he will give me his attention for a moment—

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. May I say to him that what I previously said was right, that this Bill only deals with Crown lands. The right hon. Gentleman, for the last five minutes, has been dealing with something quite outside that.

Mr. ADAMSON: I have the right hon. Gentleman's assurance and I am satisfied. But the point I wanted to put to the learned Solicitor-General was this. If I understood him aright, this Bill contains no new principle. Already the Commissioners of Woods and Forests have practically the same powers as this Bill continues to confer upon them.

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: It is quite true, as I have already explained, that the Bill gives the Commissioners the powers which, according to modern practice, are accorded to owners of settled lands. To that extent it increases their powers. It gives them greater powers for using the land for the public advantage and for administering it in the public interest. In principle it con-
tains nothing new, that is to say, the Commissioners have always had powers of selling or leasing, but they have not had the facilities for leasing which it is deemed proper to give them in order to use the lands more profitably and more beneficially.

Mr. ADAMSON: I thank the learned Solicitor-General for his additional information. But if the Bill gives the Commissioners of Woods and Forests more power, then, so far as I am concerned, as an individual, that increases my opposition to the Bill. I thought that it laid down no new principle, but the learned Solicitor-General has told me that it increases the powers of the Commissioners and, consequently, I want to say quite frankly that it increases my dislike of the Bill and my opposition to it. I have already explained to the House that I thought it laid down no new principle, but even if it lays down no new principle it gives this House the opportunity of discussing anew the powers that are in the hands of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. The powers that are in the hands of Commissioners of Woods and Forests are to sell, exchange, lease, or to dispose of any of the lands in their care and keeping. As an individual, I take the view that land is far too valuable to the nation for any Commissioners such as the Commissioners of Woods and Forests to have it in their power to sell that land. We have frequently discussed within recent weeks in this House our industrial difficulties, and Member after Member from various parts of the House has risen and has pointed out that we were not likely in the future to be able to take the same share of the world's trade and commerce as we have been accustomed to do in the past. Personally, I am inclined to agree with that view. If that is the case, it makes the value of the land at our disposal far greater in the future than has been the case in the past. In the past we have been accustomed to grow our corn in the mine and our wheat in the factory. But evidently we are not going to be able to do that in the future. We shall have to grow our corn and our wheat on the land. From the land we snail have to produce the wherewithal for our people to live.
If we are not going to be able to take as big a share of the world's trade and commerce in the future as we have done in the past, I say quite frankly to the Members of the Government that that increases my determination as an individual to see that neither these Commissioners for Woods and Forests nor any other Commissioners shall have the power to sell any parts of that land. I know that, in laying down a principle like that, I am laying down a principle with which my hon. Friends opposite entirely disagree. They believe in the private ownership of land. We on these benches are convinced that the public ownership of land is a safe and sound principle for our people or for the people of any nation. Hon. Members opposite, on the other hand, take the view that the private ownership of land is the thing. I want to say quite frankly to the learned Solicitor-General that, knowing that there is this profound difference between him and myself and my colleagues on the principle that is contained in this Bill, I am very suspicious that this Bill is really for the better administration of the Crown Lands and that it is for the amending and codifying of the present law in relation to Crown Lands. I think the learned Solicitor-General could have afforded to have spent more time in explaining really what he meant by the two bits of information that he gave us regarding this very important Bill. I can assure both him and the Government that it would have been a saving of time if he had done it. As I have already explained to him, we are suspicious about the whole thing. Evidently, it was the intention of the Government to get this Measure through the House with a very brief explanation from the Minister of Agriculture. I have a high respect for the Minister of Agriculture, but I want to say to him quite frankly that this Bill contains far too many technicalities for him to be able to explain it satisfactorily to the House. The only mind that can grasp the many technicalities that are contained in this Bill is the legal mind, and consequently I am very much disappointed that when the learned Solicitor-General rose we got such a meagre explanation from him. Not only does this Bill give to the Commissioners of Woods and Forests the power to sell or to lease or to dispose of the land—

Mr. SPEAKER: I must remind the hon. Member of the fact that that has been repeated several times over. I must warn him on that point.

Mr. ADAMSON: I was simply using that phrase to pass on to my next point. I was passing over that phrase by saying that not only is the power to deal with these lands and to sell and to lease these lands reserved in this Measure to the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, but the same power is given to the Commissioners of Woods and Forests in respect of minerals and mines.

Mr. SPEAKER: That, also, has been repeated a dozen times.

Mr. ADAMSON: It may be that other Members have dealt with the question of mines and minerals to a certain extent, but I do not think they have dealt exactly with the point that I wanted to bring in here in regard to mines and minerals. My point is simply this. The powers to sell and to lease and to dispose of these minerals are also reserved in the hands

of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. What I wanted to say regarding that is that I think that these minerals and mines are far too valuable to the people in this country to have the administration of a part of them remaining in the hands of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. I think they are far too valuable an asset to the nation. We know very well that we from our mining industry have been able to balance imports with exports. I do not know any phase of our industrial system where we have been able to make larger contributions towards balancing our imports with our exports than from the mining industry.

Mr. GUINNESS: rose in his place, and claimed to move,"That the Question be now put."

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

The House divided: Ayes, 236; Noes, 123.

Division No. 67.]
AYES.
[8.15 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut-Colonel
Churchman, Sir Arthur C.
Greene, W. P. Crawford


Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir james T.
Clarry, Reginald George
Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)


Ainsworth, Major Charles
Clayton, G. C.
Grotrlan, H. Brent


Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)
Cobb, Sir Cyril
Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.


Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l)
Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Gunston, Captain D. W.


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir G. K.
Harland, A.


Astbury, Lieut.-Commander F. W.
Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Hartington, Marquess of


Atholl, Duchess of
Cope, Major William
Hawke, John Anthony


Atkinson, C.
Couper, J. B.
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)
Henderson, Capt. R. R.(Oxf'd, Henley)


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Crookshank, Cpt. H.(Lindsey, Gainsbro)
Henderson, Lieut-Col. V. L. (Bootle)


Barclay-Harvey. C. M.
Cunliffe, Sir Herbert
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.


Barnett, Major Sir Richard
Curzon, Captain Viscount
Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.


Barnston, Major Sir Harry
Davidson. Major-General Sir John H.
Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)


Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Herbert, S. (York, N. R., Scar. & Wh'by)


Bellairs, Commander Cariyon W.
Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
Hills. Major John Waller


Bennett, A. J.
Davies, Dr. Vernon
Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt Hon. Sir S. J. G.


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Dawson, Sir Philip
Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone)


Bird. E. R. (Yorks, W. R., Skipton)
Dean, Arthur Wellesley
Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy


Blundell, F. N.
Dixey, A, C.
Holland, Sir Arthur


Boothby, R. J. G.
Duckworth, John
Holt, Capt. H. P.


Bourne, Captain Robert Croft
Eden, Captain Anthony
Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)


Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.
Edmondson, Major A. J.
Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)


Braithwaite, Major A. N.
Elliot, Major Walter E.
Hopkins, J. W. W.


Brass, Captain W.
England, Colonel A.
Hopkinson, Sir A. (Eng. Universities)


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Everard, W. Lindsay
Horllck, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.


Briggs, J. Harold
Fairfax, Captain J. G.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)


Briscoe, Richard George
Falie, Sir Bertram G.
Hudson, R. S. (Cumberi'nd, Whiteh'n)


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Fermoy, Lord
Hume, Sir G. H.


Broun-Lindsay, Major H.
Finburgh, S.
Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'I'd, Hexham)
Forrest, W.
Huntingfield, Lord


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H.C. (Berks, Newb'y)
Foster, Sir Harry S.
Hurd, Percy A.


Buckingham, Sir H.
Fraser, Captain Ian
Hutchison, G. A. Clark (Midi'n & P'bl'S)


Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.


Burgoyne, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Alan
Gadie, Lieut.-Col. Anthony
Jacob, A. E.


Burman, J. B.
Ganzonl, Sir John
Jephcott, A. R.




Joynson-Hicks. Rt. Hon. Sir William


Burton, Colonel H. W.
Gates, Percy
Jephcott, A. R.


Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward
Gauit, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)




Kindersley, Major Guy M.


Calne, Gordon Hall
Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham
King, Captain Henry Douglas


Campbell. E. T.
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Kinloch-Cooke, sir Clement


Carver, Major W. H.
Goff, Sir Park
Lamb, J. Q.


Charteris, Brigadier-General. I.
Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)
Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R.


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.
Lister, Cunlifie-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip


Little, Dr. E. Graham
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)
Styles, Captain H. Walter


Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid


Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (Handsw'th)
Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)
Tasker, R. Inigo.


Looker, Herbert William
Plicher, G.
Thorn, Lt.-Col. J, G. (Dumbarton)


Lougher, Lewis
Price, Major C. W. M.
Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)


Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere
Radford, E. A.
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)


Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman
Raine, W.
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Lumley, L. R.
Ramsden, E.
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen
Rawson, Sir Cooper
Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.


Macdonald, Capt. P, D. (I. of W.)
Rees, Sir Beddoe
Wallace, Captain D. E.


Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)
Reid, Capt. Cunningham (Warrington)
Ward, Lt.-Col. A.L.(Kingston-on. Hull)


Macintyre, Ian
Rice, Sir Frederick
Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.


McLean, Major A.
Richardson, Sir P. W. (Str'y, Ch'ts'y)
Warrender, Sir Victor


Macmillan, Captain H.
Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs, Stretford)
Waterhouse Captain Charles


Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm
Ropner, Major L.
Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otrey)


McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John
Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.
Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)


Macquisten, F. A.
Rye, F. G.
Watts, Dr. T.


MacRobert, Alexander M.
Salmon, Major I.
Wells, S. R.


Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-
Sandeman, N. Stewart
White, Lieut.-Col. sir G. Dalrymple-


Malone, Major P. B.
Sanders, Sir Robert A.
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn
Sanderson, Sir Frank
Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)


Milne, J. S. Wardlaw.
Sandon, Lord
Wilson, Sir C. H. (Leeds, Central)


Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)
Shaw, Lt. Col. A. D. Mcl. (Renfrew, W)
Wilson, M. J. (York, N. R., Richm'd)


Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Shepperson, E. W.
Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)


Moreing, Captain A. H.
Sinclair, Col. T.(Queen's Univ., Belfst)
Winby, Colonel L. P.


Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)
Skelton, A. N.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Nail, Colonel Sir Joseph
Smith, R.w. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)
Winterton. Rt. Hon. Eart


Nelson, Sir Frank
Smith-Carington, Neville W.
Wise, Sir Fredric


Neville, R. J.
Smithers, Waldron
Womersley, W. J.


Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Wood, Sir S. Hill- (High Peak)


Nicholson, O. (Westminster)
Sprot, Sir Alexander
Worthington- Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W.G.(Ptrsf'ld.)
Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden. E.)
Young, Rt. Hon. Hilton (Norwich)


Nuttall, Ellis
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)



Oakley, T.
Storry-Deans, R.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)
Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.
Captain Lord Stanley and Captain


Oman, Sir Charles William C.
Streatfelld, Captain S. R.
Margesson.


Penny, Frederick George
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)



NOES.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Grundy, T. W.
Sexton, James


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Hall, F. (York, W.R., Normanton)
Shepherd, Arthur Lewis


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)
Shiels, Dr. Drummond


Amnion, Charles George
Hardie, George D.
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Baker, Walter
Hayday, Arthur
Slesser, Sir Henry H.


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)
Smillie, Robert


Barnes A.
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Smith, Rennie (Penistone)


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
Hirst, G. H.
Snell, Harry


Bondfield, Margaret
Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip


Bromfield, William
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Spencer, G. A. (Broxtowe)


Bromley, J.
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Spoor, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Charles


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Stephen, Campbell


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Sullivan, J.


Buchanan, G.
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Sutton, J. E.


Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel
Kelly, W. T.
Taylor, R. A.


Cape, Thomas
Kennedy, T.
Thomson, Trevelyan (Middlesbro. W.)


charleton, H. C.
Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Clowes, S.
Kirkwood, D
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Cluse, W. S.
Lansbury. George
Thurtle, Ernest


Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Lawrence, Susan
Tinker, John Joseph


Compton, Joseph
Lee, F.
Townend, A. E.


Connolly, M.
Lindley, F. W.
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.


Cove, W. G.
Lowth, T.
Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen


Dalton, Hugh
Lunn, William
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Mackinder, W.
Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney


Day, Colonel Harry
MacLaren, Andrew
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah


Dennison, R.
Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)
Wellock, Wilfred


Duncan, C.
Maxton, James
Welsh, J. C.


Dunnico, H.
Montague, Frederick
Westwood, J.


Edwards. C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Morris, R. H.
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.


Fenby, T. D.
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Whiteley, W.


Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.
Mosley, Oswald
Wiggins, William Martin


Gardner, J. P.
Naylor, T. E.
Wilkinson, Ellen C.


Gibbins, Joseph
Oliver, George Harold
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Gillett, George M.
Owen, Major G.
Williams. Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Gosling, Harry
Paling, W.
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Greenall. T.
Potts, John S.
Windsor. Walter


Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Wright, W.


Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Riley, Ben



Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Ritson, J.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Groves, T.
Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W. R., Elland)
Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr. Hayes-

Question put accordingly, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The House divided; Ayes, 241; Noes, 114.

Division No. 68.]
AYES.
[8.24 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Gadie, Lieut.-Col. Anthony
Nelson, Sir Frank


Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.
Ganzonl, Sir John
Neville, R. J.


Ainsworth, Major Charles
Gates, Percy.
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)


Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)
Gauit, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton
Nicholson, O. (Westminster)


Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l)
Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham
Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W.G.(Ptrsf'ld.)


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Nuttall, Ellis


Astbury, Lieut.-Commander F. W.
Gaff, Sir Park
Oakley, T.


Atholl, Duchess of
Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)
O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)


Atkinson, C.
Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.
Oman, Sir Charles William C.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Greene. W. P. Crawford
Owen, Major G.


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)
Ponay, Frederick George


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Grotrian, H. Brent
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Barnett, Major Sir Richard
Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)


Barnston, Major Sir Harry
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Harland, A.
Pilcher, G.


Bennett, A. J.
Hartington, Marquess of
Price, Major C. W. M.


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Hawke, John Anthony
Radford, E. A.


Bird, E. R. (Yorks, W. R., Skipton)
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Raine, W.


Blundell, F. N.
Henderson, Capt. R.R.(Oxf'd, Henley)
Ramsden, E.


Boothby, R. J. G.
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)
Rawson, Sir Cooper


Bourne, Captain Robert Croft
Heneage. Lieut.-Col. Arthur P.
Rees, Sir Beddoe


Bowyer, Captain G. E. W
Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)
Held, Capt. Cunningham (Warrington)


Braithwaite, Major A. N.
Herbert, S. (York, N.R., Scar. & Wh'by)
Rice, Sir Frederick


Brass, Captain W.
Hills, Major John Waller
Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.
Robinson, Sir T. (Lanes., Stretford)


Briggs, J. Harold
Hogg, fit. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone)
Ropner, Major L.


Briscoe, Richard George
Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy
Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Holland, Sir Arthur
Rye, F. G.


Broun-Lindsay, Major H.
Holt, Captain H. p.
Salmon, Major I.


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'I'd., Hexham)
Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)
Sandeman, N. Stewart


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C.(Berks, Newb'y)
Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)
Sanders, Sir Robert A.


Buckingham, Sir H.
Hopkins, J. W. W.
Sanderson, Sir Frank


Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Hopkinson, Sir A. (Eng. Universities)
Sandon, Lord


Burgoyne, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Alan
Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.
Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl. (Renfrew. W.)


Burman, J. B.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Shepperson, E. W.


Burton, Colonel H. W.
Hudson, R.S. (Cumberl'nd, Whiteh'n)
Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfast)


Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward
Hume, Sir G. H.
Skelton, A. N.


Caine, Gordon Hall
Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine.C.)


Campbell, E. T.
Huntingfield, Lord
Smith-Carington, Neville W.


Carver, Major W. H.
Hurd. Percy A.
Smithers, Waldron


Charteris, Brigadier-General J.
Hutchison, G. A. Clark (Midi'n & P'bt's)
Somervlile, A. A. (Windsor)


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.
Spencer, G. A.(Broxtowe)


Churchman, Sir Arthur C.
Jacob, A. E.
Sprot. Sir Alexander


Clarry, Reginald George
Jephcott, A. R.
Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'eden, E.)


Clayton, G. C.
Joynson-Hicks, fit. Hon. Sir William
Stanley, Lord (Fylde)


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Kindersley, Major G. M.
Storry-Deans, A.


Cockerilf, Brig.-General Sir G. K.
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Streatfelld, Captain S. R.


Cope, Major William
Lamb, J.O.
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Couper, J. B.
Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R.
Styles, Captain H. Walter


Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)
Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid


Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey Gainsbro)
Little, Dr. E. Graham
Tasker, R. Inigo.


Cunliffe, Sir Herbert
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)
Thorn, Lt.-Col. J. G. (Dumbarton)


Curzon, Captain Viscount
Looker, Herbert William
Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)


Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.
Lougher, Lewis
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)


Davies, Maj. Geo. F.(Somersef, Yeovil)
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere
Thorne, G R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Davies, Dr. Vernon
Lumley, L. R,
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Dawson, sir Philip
MacAndrew Major Charles Glen
Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.


Dean. Arthur Wellesley
Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)
Wallace, Captain D. E.


Dixey, A. C.
Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cat heart)
Ward, Lt.-Col. A.L.(Kington-on-Hull)


Duckworth, John
Maclntyre, Ian
Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.


Eden, Captain Anthony
McLean. Major A.
Warrender, Sir Victor


Edmondson, Major A. J.
Macmillan, Captain H.
Waterhouse, Captain Charles


Elliot, Major Walter E.
Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm
Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)


England, Colonel A.
McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John
Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)


Everard, W. Lindsay
Macquisten, F. A.
Watts, Dr. T.


Fairfax, Captain J. G.
Mac Robert, Alexander M,
Wells, S. R.


Falle, Sir Bertram G.
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-
White, Lieut.-Col. Sir G. Dairymple


Fenby, T. D.
Malone. Major P. B.
Wiggins, William Martin


Fermoy, Lord
Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Finburgh, S.
Milne, J. S. Wardlaw-
Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)


Forrest, 'W.
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)
Wilson, Sir C. H. ((Leeds, Central)


Foster, Sir Harry S.
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Wilson. M. J. (York, N. R., Richm'd)


Foxcroft, Captain C. T,
Moreing, Captain A. H.
Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)


Fraser, Captain Ian
Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)
Winby, Colonel L, p.


Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Nall, Colonel Sir Joseph
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl
Wood, Sir S. Hill- (High Peak)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Wise, Sir Fredric
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon, Sir L.
Major Sir George Hennessy and


Womersley, W. J.
Young, Rt. Hon. Hilton (Norwich)
Captain Margesson.


NOES.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Grundy, T. W,
Sexton, James


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Shepherd, Arthur Lewis


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Hardie, George D.
Shiels, Dr. Drummond


Ammon, Charles George
Hayday, Arthur
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Baker, Walter
Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)
Slesser, Sir Henry H.


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Smillie, Robert


Barnes, A.
Hint, G. H.
Smith, Rennie (Penistone)


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)
Snell, Harry


Bondfield, Margaret
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfietd)
Snowden, Rt, Hon. Philip


Bromfleld, William
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Spoor, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Charles


Bromley, J.
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Stephen, Campbell


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Sullivan, J.


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Sutton, J. E.


Buchanan, G.
Kelly, W. T.
Taylor, R. A.


Cape, Thomas
Kennedy, T.
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Charleton, H. C.
Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M
Thurtle, Ernest


Clowes, S.
Kirkwood, D.
Tinker, John Joseph


Cluse, W. S.
Lansbury, George
Townend, A. E.


Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Lawrence, Susan
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. p.


Compton, Joseph
Lee, F.
Walsh. Rt. Hon. Stephen


Connolly, M.
Lindley, F. W.
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Cove, W. G.
Lowth, T.
Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney


Dalton, Hugh
Lunn, William
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Mackinder, W.
Wellock, Wilfred


Day, Colonel Harry
MacLaren, Andrew
Welsh, J. C.


Dennison, R.
Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)
Westwood, J.


Duncan, C.
Maxton, James
Wheatley. Rt. Hon. J.


Dunnico, H.
Montague, Frederick
Whiteley, W.


Edwards. C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Morris, R. H.
Wilkinson, Ellen C.


Garro-Jories, Captain G. M.
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Williams. David (Swansea, E.)


Gardner, J. P.
Mosley, Oswald
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Gibbins, Joseph
Naylor, T. E.
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Gillett, George M.
Oliver, George Harold
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Gosling, Harry
Paling, W.
Windsor, Walter


Graham, O. M. [Lanark, Hamilton)
Pothick-Lawrence, F. W.
Wright. W.


Greenall, T.
Potts, John S.



Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES—


Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Riley, Ben
Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr. Hayes.


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Ritson, J.



Groves, T.
Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W. R.,Elland)

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Motion made, and Question put,
That the Bill be committed to a Select Committee of Seven Members, Four to be nominated by the House and Three by the Committee of Selection:
That all Petitions against the Bill, presented Three clear days before the meeting of the Committee, be referred to the Committee; that the Petitioners praying to

be heard by themselves, their Counsel, or Agents, be heard against the Bill, and Counsel heard in support of the Bill:

That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records:

That Three be the quorum of the Committee."—[Mr. Guinness.]

The House divided: Ayes, 227; Noes, 114.

Division No. 69.1
AYES.
[8.32 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Blundell, F. N.
Campbell, E. T.


Agg-Gardner. Rt. Hon. Sir James T.
Boothby, R. J. G.
Carver, Major W. H.


Ainsworth, Major Charles
Bourne, Captain Robert Croft
Charteris, Brigadier-General J.


Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)
Braithwaite, Major A. N.
Churchman, Sir Arthur C.


Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l)
Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Clarry, Reginald George


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Briggs, J. Harold
Clayton, G. C.


Astbury, Lieut.-Commander F. W.
Briscoe, Richard George
Cobb. Sir Cyril


Atholl, Duchess of
Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Cockeril, Brig.-General Sir G. K.


Atkinson, C.
Broun-Lindsay, Major H.
Colfox, Major Wm- Phillips


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'I'd., Hexham)
Cope, Major William


Barclay-Harvey C. M.
Brown. Brig.-Gen. H.C.(Berks. Newb'y)
Couper, J. B.


Barnett, Major Sir Richard
Buckingham, Sir H.
Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L.


Bamston, Major Sir Harry
Bull. Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)


Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.
Burgoyne, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Alan
Crookshank, Cpt. H.(Lindsey, Gainsbro)


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Burman, J. B.
Cunlifie, Sir Herbert


Bennett, A, J,
Burton, Colonel H. W.
Curzon. Captain viscount


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward
Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.


Bird, E. R. (Yorks, W. R Skipton)
Caine, Gordon Hell
Davies, maj. Geo. F.(Somerset, Yeovll)


Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
Jacob A. E.
Rye, F. G.


Davies, Dr. Vernon
Jephcott, A. R.
Salmon, Major I.


Dawson, Sir Philip
Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William
Sandeman, N. Stewart


Dean, Arthur Wellesley
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)
Sanders, Sir Robert A.


Dixey, A. C.
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Sanderson, Sir Frank


Duckworth, John
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Sandon, Lord


Eden, Captain Anthony
Lamb, J. Q.
Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl. (Renfrew, W.)


Edmondson, Major A. J.
Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R.
Shepperson, E. W.


Elliot, Major Walter E.
Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip
Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfast)


England, Colonel A.
Little. Dr. E. Graham
Skelton, A. N.


Everard, w. Lindsay
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)
Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine. C.)


Fairfax, Captain J. G.
Looker, Herbert William
Smith-Carington, Neville W.


Falle, Sir Bertram G.
Lougher, Lewis
Smithers, Waldron


Fermoy, Lord
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Finburgh, S.
Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman
Sprot, Sir Alexander


Forrest, W.
Lumley. L. R.
Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.)


Foster, Sir Harry S.
MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen
Stanley, Lord (Fylde)


Foxcroft, Captain C. T.
Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)


Fraser, Captain Ian
Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)
Storry-Deans, R.


Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Maclntyre, Ian
Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.


Gadie, Lieut.-Col. Anthony
McLean, Major A.
Streatfeild, Captain S. R.


Gates, Percy
Macmillan, Captain H.
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Gauit, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton
Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm
Styles, Captain H. Walter


Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham
McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid


Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Macquisten, F. A.
Tasker, R. Inigo


Goff, Sir Park
Mac Robert Alexander M.
Thorn, Lt.-Col. J. G. (Dumbarton)


Glaham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-
Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)


Greene, W. P. Crawford
Malone, Major P. B.
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)


Grenlell, Edward C. (City of London)
Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Grotrian, H. Brent
Milne, J. S. Wardlaw-
Tryon, Rt. Hon, George Clement


Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)
Vaughan-Morgan. Col. K. P.


Gunston, Captain D. W.
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Wallace, Captain D, E.


Harland, A.
Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)
ward, Lt.-Col. A.L.(Kingston-on-Hull)


Hartington, Marquess of
Nall, Colonel Sir Joseph
Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.


Hawke, John Anthony
Nelson, Sir Frank
Warrender, Sir Victor


Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Neville, R. J.
Waterhouse, Captain Charles


Henderson. Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley)
Newman, sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)


Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)
Nicholson, O. (Westminster)
Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)


Heneage, Lieut.- Col. Arthur P.
Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G.(Ptrsf'd.)
Watts, Dr. T.


Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.
Nuttall, Ellis
Wells. S. R.


Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)
Oakley, T.
White, Lieut.-Col. Sir G. Dairymple-


Hills, Major John Waller
O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)
Wiggins, William Martin


Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone)
Oman, Sir Charles William C.
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy
Penny, Frederick George
Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)


Holland, Sir Arthur
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Wilson, Sir C, H. (Leeds, Central)


Holt, Captain H. P.
Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)
Wilson, M. J. (York, N. R., Richm'd)


Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k. Nun.)
Pilcher, G.
Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)


Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)
Price, Major C. W. M.
Windy, Colonel L. P.


Hopkins, J. W. W.
Radford, E. A.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Hopkinton, Sir A. (Eng. Universities)
Raine. W.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.
Ramsden, E.
Wise, Sir Fredric


Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Rawson, sir Cooper
Womersley, W. J.


Hudson, R. S. (Cumberl'nd, Whiteh'n)
Rees, Sir Beddoe
Wood, Sir S. Hill- (High Peak)


Hume, Sir G. H.
Reid, Capt. Cunningham (Warrington)
Worthington-Evans. Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Rice, Sir Frederick
Young, Rt. Hon. Hilton (Norwich)


Huntingfield, Lord
Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)



Hurd, Percy A.
Robinson, Sir T. (Lanes., Stretford)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Hutchison, G. A. Clark(Mldl'n & P'bl's)
Ropner, Major L.
Captain Margesson and Captain


Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.
Ruggles-Brist, Major E. A.
Bowyer.


NOES.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Day, Colonel Harry
Hirst, G. H.


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hilsbro')
Dennison, R.
Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)


Ammon. Charles George
Duncan, C.
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)


Raker, Walter
Dunnico, H.
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan. Neath)


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertlliery)
Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)


Barnes, A.
Fenby, T. D.
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)


Bondfield, Margaret
Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)


Bromfield, William
Gardner, J. P.
Kelly, W. T.


Bromley, J.
Gibbint, Joseph
Kennedy, T.


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Gillett, George M.
Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Gosling, Harry
Kirkwood. D.


Buchanan, G.
Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Lansbury, George


Cape, Thomas
Groenall, T.
Lawrence, Susan


Chariston, H. C.
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Coine)
Lee. F.


Clowes, S.
Grenfell. D. R. (Glamorgan)
Lindley, F. W.


Cluse, W. S.
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Lowth, T.


Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Groves, T.
Lunn, William


Compton, Joseph
Grundy, T. W.
Mackinder, w.


Connolly, M.
Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)


Cove, W. G.
Hardie, George D.
Maxton, James


Dalton, Hugh
Henderson, Rt Hon. A. (Burnley)
Montague, Frederick




Morris, R. H.
Slesser, Sir Henry H.
Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney


Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Smillie, Robert
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah


Mosley, Oswald
Smith, Rennie (Penistone)
Wellock, Wilfred


Naylor, T. E.
Snell, Harry
Welsh, J. C.


Oliver, George Harold
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip
Westwood, J.


Owen, Major G.
Spencer, G. A. (Broxtowe)
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.


Paling, W.
Spoor, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Charles
Whiteley, W.


Pethick-Lawrence, F. w.
Stephen, Campbell
Wilkinson, Ellen C.


Potts, John S.
Sullivan, J.
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Sutton, J. E.
Williams, Or. J. H. (Llanelly)


Riley, Ben
Taylor, R. A.
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Ritson, J.
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W.R., Elland)
Thurtle, Ernest
Windsor, Walter


Sexton, James
Tinker, John Joseph
Wright, W.


Shepherd, Arthur Lewis
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.



Shiels, Dr. Drummond
Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)
Watson, W. M. (Duntermline)
Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr. Hayes.


Question put, and agreed to.

RURAL INDUSTRY.

Brigadier-General CLIFTON BROWN: I beg to move,
That this House is of opinion that the Government should do all in its power to foster the development of village life and industries, and to promote good craftsmanship in agriculture.
I propose, very shortly, to give a view of village life in Tudor times, to trace the changes made by the industrial revolution, and then to offer some suggestions as to how the Government can help, under present conditions, to foster the development of village life and industry. I do not propose to say much about the last part of the Resolution, concerning craftmanship, because the hon. and gallant Member for Yeovil (Major Davies), who is to second the Resolution, will develop that part of the subject. If I may refer to our splendid old English history, I would ask the House to cast their thoughts back a thousand years to the time when the Romans brought us civilisation, or, at any rate, good roads and the starting of civilisation. That was all blotted out by internal dissentions and strife. Then William the Conqueror came and gradually restored law and order, and during 500 years we came to better times. Not on my authority but on the authority of that great historian, Mr. Trevelyan, who writes about that period, there was never a time when village and rural life was so characteristic of our national culture and character as it was then. Every village in those days was self-contained. It had its own industries, it provided its own food, its own bootmakers, its own basketmakers, and the builders of houses, and everything that was needed. Wool was the one industry common to every village and town in those days.
Let me tell a story, quite authenticated, of a Mr. Jack, of Newbury, the constituency which I have the honour to represent. He made a bet that in 24 hours from the shearing of a sheep he would turn out a coat for his customer to walk away in. You see in the old records pictures of a man bringing in the sheep, the customer selecting the sheep, the village girls with spindles and loom weaving the cloth, and the tailor making the coat. The customer walked out of the shop in 2–1 hours and Mr. Jack won his bet.
That was a typical instance of the industry of every village and town. That was the reason why we had more cloth than we knew what to do with. It was this industry which enabled us to start our Empire, because we had to look for markets for our coth in America and India and other places, and cloth was then the one thing which we had to market. Is it from the point of view of markets that I wish to regard our rural industries. In those clays three quarters of our people lived in the country, and we only had about half a million people in London, out of a population if about 5,000,000 or 6,000,000. The roads were so bad that these industries had to be in the villages where they were started, and long lines of pack ponies used to fetch the wares of the merchants to the coast for transport abroad. Then came the industrial revolution which changed all that. As our trade grew, our merchants wanted more wares to sell. Then they thought it would be cheaper and better for them to get our skilled craftsmen from the villages into the towns. They brought the men into the towns, but they did not build houses for them, and that started our slums. Under the old manorial customs, the village craftsmen were looked after in olden days and were properly housed and were treated as part of the
family of the head of the firm, but when they were brought into the big towns, the merchants for the sake of cheapness or for some other reason, neglected housing, and also introduced Free Trade because it meant cheaper food, and therefore they were not compelled to pay such high wages. I should like to refer to a book which I always have on my table, and this is "The Letters of Charles Kingeley." This is what he says about the Manchester School:
To pretend to be the workman's friends by keeping down the price of bread, when all they want thereby is to keep down wages and increase profits, and in the meantime to widen the gulf between the working man and all that is time honoured, refined and chivalrous in English society that they may make the men their divided slaves, that is —perhaps unconsciously, for there are many excellent men among them—the game of the Manchester School.
That is why village life, as it was formerly known, disappeared and why we have to face the present situation. In the present situation we have foreign competition and mass production to meet, but on the other hand we have much better communications by means of our roads and railways, and as far as markets are concerned the country around the big towns is gradually being urbanised. I should prefer to see it being ruralised instead of urbanised and I hope to suggest means by which that can be done. The question of the marketing of our goods is as important to village industries to-day as it was then, but the method of marketing has changed. Before making any suggestions may I refer to some of the country industries which I think ought to be helped and encouraged? I am leaving out the primary industry of agriculture because we have had many Debates on it and at all events, so far as markets are concerned, these other industries are linked with the agricultural industry and where the agricultural industry thrives, all these industries will thrive with it. In the Report of the Ministry of Agriculture on agricultural output for 1925 I noticed a reference to osier basket making. There are 16,000 tons of osiers sold annually. This is an industry in which 10 or 12 counties are interested and in the county which I represent, Berkshire, along the banks of the Kennet the osiers grow better almost than anywhere else. That industry was
very useful and indeed very necessary in the country and is at a standstill. This industry applied to be placed under the Safeguarding of Industries Act and why its application was refused I do not know. I understand that baskets are sent into our markets here which are made by prisoners in the gaols of Holland and Belgium and which undersell our home produced baskets. If that be the case, I would ask the Minister of Agriculture if this industry applies again, as I understand it will apply again, to be placed under the Safeguarding of Industries Act, to see if he cannot help it in some way or other. The county in which I live had the old Sussex iron industry, some of the product of which we can see in the Crypt of this House. That industry was not confined to Sussex. I have seen in the village of Pangbourne in Berkshire beautiful work done by village smiths, who took more interest in the fashioning of beautiful things when they had the whole work of fashioning an article to do themselves and when none of the parts was made by other people or by some big factory.
A few years ago in the village of Yat-tenden a generous gentleman encouraged the starting of copper and iron making industry and it added great interest to life for the people of this very rural district. We have with us now since the War what we had not previously, namely women's institutes in the villages and country districts and these are doing great work in the interests of the rural population. They have helped to inspire the people of the villages with the spirit of useful industry. They encourage such work as gloves, rabbit skins and moleskins and woollen stockings, and in some of our villages articles of this kind are being turned out which will compete with the best to be found in any market in the world. I would suggest to the Minister of Agriculture that industry of this kind ought to be encouraged in connection with the work of the Empire Marketing Board. We should be able to display these goods in the markets of our Empire and sell them to our Dominions in return for things which they could send to us. There is a modern movement started about four or five years ago —I believe we owe it to the then Leader of the Coalition Government—for agricultural education in the counties. Lecturers are sent round to give details
of bee keeping and lectures and practical demonstrations in hedging and ditching and so forth and if we look through the Report to which I have already referred, of the Ministry of Agriculture, we can see that in matters such as poultry keeping a great deal is due to the instruction which is provided by the county councils. These are great assets to agriculture in this country and to the people of the villages.
I was interested in an article by Mr. J. Beal of Saxilby, on rural industries in which he described a man of brains and individuality, the type which we want to encourage, who set up in his village with an oil engine and a saw bench and in a few weeks the farmers of the district were coining round to him to get him to mend wheels and so forth. He extended the business until now, instead of employing only himself, he is employing a great many hands. That shows the necessity of encouraging individual effort, and I hope that our schools, instead of teaching only education, will teach some practical trades, such as engineering and so on. I know an instance in my own constituency of a little village under the Berkshire hills, composed mostly of independent smallholders, where one man set up with a saw bench on these lines, and he is now certainly increasing his business and employing a good many of the village hands, teaching skilled men, and turning out the best wheelbarrows that I have bought for my farm for many a long day from anywhere. There are many of these little industries which only need encouragement and which need not cost the Government anything, if they are properly treated in the matter of gates and roads.
I want to come to some suggestions as to how the Government might—and will, I am sure, if it does not cost them anything, and I do not think these will —try to encourage the village industries and village life. As I said before, the whole question of the development of our roads in these days has altered the situation that was brought upon us by the industrial revolution, and it is now possible, owing to better roads and better communications, to think of getting back factories which had settled round the towns into the rural districts. If we do that, at all events they give better
markets, not only for agriculture, but for all these village industries that I have mentioned. In my own constituency, again at Newbury, in the last few years, at Thatcham a paper mill was started, and it operates there in far better circumstances than it would do where there are so many factories in the big towns.
9.0 p.m.
Two years ago I happened to go round a little engineering works which, when full, employ from 150 to 200 men, a firm which has been working many years making these engines, and I found they were making the whole of the engines for the King of Egypt's yacht. I went a few doors up, in Newbury, to a newly formed carpentering firm, and I found that they were making the whole of the interior furniture for the King of Egypts yacht. Those are two little industries, one of which has been going over 100 years, in the country, and those orders have been given to these two industries in a typical English town instead of to big firms, and surely it is much better, if we can help and encourage that movement with proper safeguards. There is one thing necessary if you are in earnest about encouraging these things. You must see that these factories or businesses, when they are put out in the countryside, provide houses for their people as well as houses for their machinery or whatever it may be. I know it is rather an impossible thing that I ask, but I think that every industry ought to provide houses for its own people, which was always done by the old squires and by the old agricultural landowners. [An HON. MEMBER: "Dead now!"] They are not dead now, and they still do it. That motto ought to be followed, but I quite understand the handicap to industry that it would be, and whatever method is followed, there is no question that if you industrialise the countryside and get these factories back, you must see first of all that the people are housed. I am quite sure that if the Minister of Health could come and see some of the housing conditions in the country, he would be very anxious to clear the slums and to do something more than he has done up to date for housing in the country.
There is a movement now on foot which, I believe, it is the time and the opportunity to encourage, a voluntary movement, for the planning of the rural
districts. I refer to the Society for the Preservation of Rural England, for which many distinguished professors and others are now trying to enlist the sympathy of all sorts of bodies in the country. I will give, as an instance of what I mean by the planning of rural areas, what they have done lately in Kent. There the industry was not brought in, but it started itself. I mean the coal industry, and from Canterbury to Sandwich and from Sandwich to the North Foreland and Folkestone, all the owners and all the councils and others interested have arranged a plan for the preservation of rural England in that district—the "Garden of England," as they often call Kent. I have not personally seen it, but one of my hon. Friends will, I hope, develop it later. The thoroughness of this development, with the villages of the workers in the mines on one side and the country village and agricultural land on the other, and the way in which it has. been done, show no reason to fear that if we set our minds to this job and if rural England is to be industrialised instead of urbanised we can still keep up rural England.
The chief objects of that Society are, of course, like the Welwyn Garden City, the preservation of agricultural land and the grouping of building land together, and I suggest that the rural industries should be incorporated and made a part of their programme, a programme which I hope that everybody in this country, of all parties and of all classes, will do their best to support. There is another suggestion that I have to make. Many of these good societies are doing their best, either for rural England or the industries thereof, besides the women's institutes, the Playing Grounds Association, the Society for the Preservation of Rural England, and so forth, and I suggest that the Minister might take some means of amalgamating all those societies under one head. I went the other day to the Rural Intelligence Bureau, which is a very poor little show, only I do not suppose it gets much money and cannot get much help, and I think all these movements to do good for rural England should be incorporated under one head in aid of this Preservation of Rural England Society, and be the god-child of the Government or the Ministry of Agriculture for the whole of those purposes instead of only one.
I want to refer to one more thing, and that is that I hope the Electricity Act, which we were told was going to do so much to help provide power and light in our country villages, will not be forgotten, because it seems to me to be the system on which we should try to develop our rural country. I do not believe in Government control of these industries, nor in State management, but I think the time has come when we have arrived at the need for some national supervision and co-ordination to be exercised in all these matters. As I understand the Electricity Act, that is the plan on which it is founded, and that is the plan on which I hope the Government will co-ordinate all these rural efforts to better the country. The crying scandal, to which I hope my hon. Friend will refer, of the way in which they are building houses along the roads now is one of the surest ways to produce slums in future that has ever been invented in this country, and it is not only private landowners who are responsible. I happen to be on a Local Legislation Committee upstairs, and there I see the way in which boroughs and towns are trying to extend their powers along the main roads, instead of taking a circle and planning proper economical ways of providing gas and lighting, not for 10 or 15 miles along a road, but around a compact little village or town. It makes one very anxious for the future of the country, and I hope that everyone will take the advice on this matter of the Society for the Preservation of Rural England.
There can be no hard-and-fast rule laid down as to the conditions of rural industries in various parts of the country, but I think we should not forget the importance of remembering the motto in Tudor times—a great deal better slogan than anything we have heard lately—"Speed the shuttle as well as speed the plough." That is not impossible if we all set our minds and unite together to try and ruralise the country side in the best way for agriculture and for the workers who will come to the factories, provided we take time by the forelock in making plans for the industrialisation of England, and take a warning from what happened 120 years ago, when towns were made so unhealthy by the industrial revolution. I am quite sure what was said in Tudor times is the wish of every-
body in this House. It can be done. England can still be made into what Shakespeare describes as:
This happy race of men, this little world;
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands;
This blessed plot this earth, this realm, this England.

Major DAVIES: I beg to second the Motion.
One has little hope of drawing a horse, still less a winner in the House of Commons sweepstakes, but in this case, I backed myself both ways, and find myself obtaining a second place. It is a remarkable thing that there are two subjects which, whenever they can be debated in this House, seem to produce speeches of inordinate length, and, to judge by the audience listening to them, of appalling dullness. Those subjects are education and agriculture; but when they are combined in one, as is the case this evening, when we are considering, in some aspects, agricultural education, it opens a vista of such hideous possibility, that we are appalled at the thought of what lies before us. I cannot hope to avoid dullness, but I shall endeavour to achieve brevity. My hon. and gallant Friend who moved this Resolution confined himself very largely to the side of what I may call the lesser industries in rural England. I would rather direct the attention of the House to the more important of all our rural industries, and that is the industry of agriculture itself. But when we come to consider, from the point of view to which I wish to direct the thoughts of the House this evening, the question of the welfare of agriculture, we are faced at once with a problem of a much wider issue.
It is a problem that is not peculiar to this country, for several countries in the world seem to suffer in the same way. It is the problem of the drift of our population from the countryside into the towns, a matter that is of exceedingly grave importance, because while it is happening, so to speak, slowly, and therefore we are not, perhaps, inclined to pay too much attention to it, it is achieving very anxious proportions. That drift, of course, is caused by economic reasons; we must admit that at once. But whatever our doubts may
be in the diagnosis of the causes, or whatever our varying suggestions may be for dealing with it, I think there is one thing upon which we must all agree, that it is infinitely better physically, morally and spiritually for our people to be born and bred in the country, among the successes of God, rather than in the towns among the failures of men. If we are. at one on that, then we can, perhaps, begin to see some little light as to how we may aim at achieving an object common to us all.
There are, of course, various sidelights with regard to the question of the amenities of rural life, some of which have been touched upon by my hon. and gallant Friend. And yet amenities are not sufficient, because, after all, one must come down to the question of remuneration. When we were discussing questions of agriculture in the House last Monday, the right hon. Gentleman who was Minister of Agriculture in the Labour Government devoted most of his time to the problem, simply, of wages, and it seemed as if his suggestion towards the rehabilitation of prosperity in agriculture was to be by a process of increasing wages. While we are all agreed, particularly those of us who happen to represent agricultural constituencies, and have more than a passing acquaintance with agriculture, its charms and problems, that the payment of present wages in rural England is not adequate to the scale demanded to-day, by agricultural work, which is not second to that of the skilled mechanic in the town, it must also be borne in mind that that rate of wages depends directly on the ability of the employer to pay the wages, and that ability depends entirely upon the profits of industry, or the difference between the cost of production and what the farmer can get for his produce. The Minister of Agriculture on that occasion quite rightly pointed out, that for various reasons we are debarred from any striking theatrical or empirical method of dealing with agriculture, and restoring by legislation, or in some other way, immediate prosperity in that depressed industry.
If that be so, we are driven back to minor considerations. If the price of your article has to remain constant; if you wish, for the reasons that I have tried to indicate, to increase productiveness and the remuneration of the work in rural Eng-
land, it can only be achieved by greater efficiency and output Therefore you come back to what I was speaking of, and that is the question of education, or scientific research, so that we may, by the application of science and experimental development in agriculture, get a greater output at the existing cost, and, therefore, in that way, perhaps, be enabled to pay a remuneration which will in itself help to stem this drift from the country to the towns.' It is true we have agricultural colleges set up throughout the country, and we have excellent county farm institutes, and not only have they made very remarkable progress along scientific and applied scientific lines, but, what is more gratifying from the practical point of view, they are no longer content to sit like Mahomet waiting for the mountain to come to them. They are going to the mountain of prejudice, of inexperience, of suspicion which the fanners of this country as a whole are apt to display to new methods. 'They are bringing clean milk demonstrations right on to the farm; lectures on poultry keeping and various other industries are being brought into the villages; and we are seeing farmers themselves beginning to appreciate the exceedingly valuable work which is being done all over the country —though not on as great a scale as many of us would wish to see it—in our various agricultural colleges and scientific research institutes. But in other industries if we wish to put young fellows to learn the craft we do not send them to a college. One cannot imagine a boy who wants to become a skilled bricklayer going to a bricklaying college and taking a course in bricklaying. He is apprenticed to the craft direct, in order that he may learn his job, and while it may be true that the first thing he will learn is that he must always avoid breaking the speed limit in the matter of laying bricks, nevertheless he has the opportunity of becoming a master of his craft, because he knows full well it is a skilled occupation which he must learn from someone who can teach it to him. In our greatest industry, agriculture, this does not happen, however.
If, in connection with the drift of population from the country to the towns, we analyse the labouring population throughout rural England, we find that the average age is constantly
increasing. Young men are not coming into the rural districts, it is older men who are employed there, and one by one those village crafts which we still have are dropping into disuse because the younger generation have not learned the craftsmanship of the job. There is a great difficulty in getting experienced hedgers, ditchers, thatchers, men who can make hurdles, men of that class. In this connection I would like to emphasise the point that side by side with this we are finding a loss of efficiency in a craft which utilises primarily the raw materials with which Nature has surrounded any particular little locality. In the place of things manufactured on the spot we get manufactured articles from the towns, and that is why, instead of hedges, we see miserable con-crete-post-and-wire fences, or fences of barbed wire, which is as dangerous to the cattle shut in by it as to the hunter who tries to soar over the top. Or else we see, instead of the thatched roof made from materials on the spot, those monstrosities, asbestos tile roofs appearing like pale pink armadillos all over the countryside. By teaching crafts to those who are to be engaged in agriculture we can restore the activities which make use of the materials at hand. That observation applies to building, too. We have to carry machine-made bricks all over the country, though we still have on the spot the materials from which cottages were built in the past and could be built to-day, if people had not lost the craft.
The amenity side of life is as important as the remunerative. Man does not live by bread alone,
Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
While bread and meat and raiment are necessities of life—except, possibly, that the feminine sex are trying to prove that the last-named is not as necessary as the other two—nevertheless there are conditions attaching to the amenities of life which will sometimes outweigh the consideration of an addition of so many shillings a week to wages. I suggest to the Minister of Agriculture that he should endeavour to apply to our agricultural industry the old principle of apprenticeship. Side by side with its benefit to our own agricultural industry at home it will have a direct, potential bearing on the
question of emigration and the fitting out of our younger generation at home to take up life overseas.

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present; House counted; and 40 Members being present—

Major DAVIES: After that little demonstration of addition and subtraction, perhaps I may be allowed to complete the train of thought I was trying to develop. I was saying that side by side with the advantage which might accrue to our own agricultural industry at home we should be doing something which would not be altogether without its effect on emigration. If we could establish here a system of agricultural apprenticeship it would be somewhat along the lines of a great deal of the work which is already being done, on far too small a scale, between this country and our Dominions. We have excellent institutions, which only deal with a mere handful of our people, for giving them the necessary preliminary agricultural training, so that they can get the countryside touch before they go overseas. Those who have gone out at an early age have been kept in touch through the Big Brother movement, which it seems to me is a necessary corollary to the success of a movement for apprenticeship in agriculture such as I have in mind.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for the Shipley Division of Yorkshire (Mr. Mackinder) in a speech on emigration the other night, to which the whole House listened with intense pleasure, pointed out that it did not follow that the man who made the best worker on the land overseas was the man who came from farm life here at home, but it was the young fellows from our towns and coal mines. It seems to me that this question of the development of apprenticeship in agriculture should not be confined to what I may call the lad3 of the village, but should be extended to boys of leaving school age who have the pioneer spirit of adventure, who make the best scouts in the town, who love to make things for themselves instead of buying them at a shop. That is the type of spirit we want, not only to send overseas, but for their potentialities here at home. We want them to make the fullest use of those inborn tendencies in. our own countryside.
It would be a disastrous thing if lads, at such a critical age, were to be sent to any particular farm and at some distance from their own homes unless there were some form of liaison control. That has been supplied splendidly out in our Dominions by the Big Brother movements. Surely, we have here at home enough people with a patriotic instinct, who are still willing to give voluntarily of their best for the sake of the old homeland. Those are the sort of people to make the best type of patron or Big Brother to look after the moral welfare of the lads apprenticed in this way. It-is also necessary to choose suitable places to send them to. There are good and bad farmers, like there are good and bad Members of Parliament, and it would be a disaster if the movement were to come to grief because of the unwise selection of the farms to which they are sent. I feel strongly that here at home, instead of spending large, sums of money for setting up agricultural institutions, we have the finest agricultural training ground you could wish for in our own farms, and we do not make the fullest use of it. Some hon. Members opposite may criticise this suggestion and say that it is a scheme to enable the farmer to get cheap labour and to replace men to whom he would otherwise be paying a full wage. That might be an objection. It is certainly the last thing I had in mind. Some way of dealing with it might be devised, and I foresee that there are difficulties in the suggestion I have made.
In conclusion, I do urge upon the Minister that he should really take this suggestion of mine into serious consideration, not with a view to having difficulties raised by his Department, but with a view to seeing if it is not worth while to get over such difficulties as he may find in order to achieve a three-fold advantage. One advantage will be the stemming, if not the reversing of the drift from the country to the town; the second would be laying the basis for the development of those minor rural industries such as those spoken of to-night; the third would be that that movement on our own land should work in common with the emigration movement for those going on the land of our Dominions overseas. If the result of this Debate, which has nearly flickered out during the time I have been speaking, should be that the
Minister would find it worth while to pursue that suggestion, I feel that the Debate will not have been altogether in vain.

Mr. WRIGHT: The hon. and gallant Member who opened this Debate has covered a considerable period in the history of agriculture in these lands, and I listened with a great deal of interest to his observations, though I sometimes regretted he did not speak a little more fully as to the causes that were at work affecting rural life. For instance, he might have reminded us of the times when the gallant men on the land were deprived of their land and treated as vagabonds and some 67,000 of them were quietly put out of existence at the time of Elizabeth. He might have reminded us also of the time, immediately after the Napoleonic Wars, when the starvation wages paid on the land helped to drive so many people into other industries. There is no doubt that many of them would have preferred to have remained where they were. They were brought up in the villages, they were attached to the villages, but economic necessity drove them into other departments of life. They very readily fell into the new labour of making railways and into going to distant parts of the world and to the great industrial centres. The chief reason for that, at any rate from our point of view, was the economic conditions which prevailed and which were not always a part of the economic conditions of agriculture. The hardships which were imposed at that time were such that they had no alternative. I met an old gentleman a few days ago, very severely crippled by rheumatism, who told me he began life on the land at l½d. a day or 9d. per week. He very often went out to work with the promise of breakfast being sent to him, but his mother had no food to send him and his dinner was merely an apology for breaking his fast. His two brothers, driven by starvation, joined the Army, grew up very strong, powerful men, but they came back to the rural conditions which prevailed.
There is no question at all, in my opinion, that the chief cause of the rural depopulation in this country, which is to be deplored, is the semi-starvation wages, the shocking conditions of housing, and the uncertain conditions of life. Rural life without any prospect before the agricultural labourer has been
in the past, and is to-day, one of the chief factors which have led to the decline of the rural population in this country. It is perfectly true that until the time of the industrial revolution we were chiefly an agricultural population, and now we are largely urban. We have changed the proportion. Two hundred years ago probably 80 per cent. of the people were connected with agriculture and its kindred industries on the land and in the villages; now that has been reversed, probably to a greater extent than in any country in Europe. We have had a decline in the physique of our people to a corresponding extent. Mr. Braseey, the great railway contractor, in his "Work and Wages," makes a statement that in 1857 some hundreds of rural labourers were required for railway work and were taken from my own native county of Lincoln and that the average height of these men was 5 feet 10$ inches. It would be very difficult to find, in the rural part of our land to-day, such fine types of physique as obtained in those days.
We have not only that aspect of the question to consider, but also the further matter dealt with by the hon. and gallant Member who seconded the Motion. I have taken a few notes of many of his observations and with many of them I am in perfect agreement, but some of his suggestions do not commend themselves to hon. Members on this side of the House. I have known in the past friends of mine, the boys of my early life, who served their apprenticeship in the factory system. They served it on. the smallest possible wage which the factory owner was willing to pay. I have known men, 20 and 21 years of age, working for 8s. to 10s. a week and, when they attained their majority and were entitled to their full wage as men skilled in the industry, they were given notice and had to leave and the industry was carried on by apprentice labour.
That has been a shocking feature of the factory system of this country in days gone by, a system which we do not want to see encouraged as far as agriculture is concerned. I do not agree that there has been a lack of skill as implied by the hon. and gallant Member opposite so far as the rural workers are concerned. I remember 50 years ago we had highly-skilled hedgers, ditchers and thatchers and they were all capable of
following every aspect of rural life and able to turn their hand to that kind of work. My own father was that kind of man, and he was highly skilled in all the various aspects of the agricultural industry. It was my good fortune to see him transform a 200-acre farm which, when he took it over, had been badly let down for want of capital and good management. In the course of seven years my father turned that farm into one of the most prosperous farms in South Yorkshire. After he left it failed, because two farmers got it who had insufficient capital and were without farming experience, and when my father's supervision was withdrawn the farm reverted to its original condition. One can remember the lessons of one's youth for a long period, and I have always been thankful to have that particular experience in my early days because it has been a most valuable lesson to me all my life.
I happen to belong to a race of people who for generations were cultivators of the soil, shepherds and agriculturists in the premier wheat-growing county of this country, and all the members of my family were highly skilled, efficient and sober. I never knew a single one of them under the influence of drink. It is rather remarkable that of that family only one surviving member of four generations has remained in his native county, and the reason why they went abroad to such places as Australia and New Zealand and to Manchester was the semi-starvation wages which were paid in the agricultural industry. It is estimated that we are wasting £40,000,000 worth of sewage matter which might be used for fertilising purposes, and which would help to restore certain aspects of agriculture.
The question of agriculture in itself is too large a subject to be dealt with in a brief speech. I readily admit that, but I would like to point out that we are importing round about £500,000,000 worth of foodstuffs, year by year, for man and beast, all of which could be produced in this country, and from a national point of view I regard that as a very grave matter. We have a population rapidly approaching 50,000,000, who are dependent for 40 weeks out of the 52 upon imported foodstuffs. That is a national danger of the first order. Even
if it could be said that this quantity of food could not be produced in this country, it would still be a very grave matter. When we recollect that only 80 years ago the vast majority of the people of this nation were fed upon home-grown produce, and our ability to produce food has increased more rapidly than the population during that period, that is a question which, in my judgment, demands the most serious attention of the Government.
I want to deal with two aspects of this large question. First, I am convinced that pig products, on the import of which we spend £58,000,000 to £60,000,000, could all be produced in our own country just as well as in Denmark, the United States or any other part of the world. I think it is upon those lines there is the possibility of adding enormously to our national wealth. Another aspect of this question is our egg supply. We are importing £20,000,000 worth of eggs from various parts of the world. If we could get the capital, I am sure that quite another £100,000,000 worth of our imported foodstuffs could be produced in this country within the next few years. At the present moment we are confronted with two problems. We on the Labour Benches are constantly being called upon to encourage higher production. That story has been dinned into our ears until we have got weary of hearing it. Behind that statement is the implication that nearly all workmen are "slackers," who are not pulling their full weight, and not producing to the extent they might do. I would like to point out, however, that the workmen do not control the supply of raw material and, therefore, those who do control the raw material are primarily responsible in this matter. If in the course of the next five years we could increase our produce from the soil to the extent of £100,000,000 per annum, all that would be to the good, and I am sure that is a suggestion that will meet with the approval of hon. Members in all parts of this House.
There is another instance which I will quote from my own experience. There was a widespread belief 50 years ago that a profitable orchard of five or six acres on a farmstead of 200 acres in a fairly good year would pay the rent of that farm. I have known cases of that kind. We are now importing large quantities of
apples. Three-quarters of our supply of apples are imported fruit, and toe orchards in many parts of this country have gradually been getting down to a shocking state. Only the other day we had a Cabinet Minister suggesting that we should buy New Zealand apples. What is wrong with the Baldwin Pippin or with the fruit from Devonshire? I remember the story of a farm run by Dr. Streeter, who developed a factory farm of 350 acres. He did not sell his produce in the ordinary way, but fed cows and pigs and produced apples, and so on, and in five years on a farm which was regarded as being in an inferior condition, he made of it a very prosperous speculation. He paid quite double the average wages given for ordinary farm work. He guaranteed his employés a full year's work, and he provided all the amenities of city life for the people he employed. He employed three times as many people on his 350 acres as the ordinary farmer does, and he made this a prosperous speculation. If we had 1,000 factory farms of 1,000 acres in this country developed during the next five years on the lines of Dr. William Streeter's farm, we should have set an example of a new type of agricultural life which would be of immense benefit to this country and its people.
We never can settle the people back on the land under the old conditions. They were impossible conditions. Reference has been made to the slums in rural areas. You cannot visit a single Cathedral city in this country, or go within a mile of any great hall in this country, without seeing slums characteristic of these Cathedral cities and rural areas. That ought not to be. You cannot expect people to go back to rural life on semi-starvation wages and on such conditions. I do not share the views expressed by the hon. and gallant Member for Yeovil (Major G. Davies) with regard to apprenticeship. We do not want to train men in this country to became accomplished and expert agricultural workers and then go abroad to cultivate the lands of other parts of the Empire. Why should they go 12,000 miles to Australia or New Zealand when, given the same conditions here, they could do just as well in this country as they can there? I want to see this country developed, I want to see this country colonised, I want to see this country recover something of the stamina
of its rural life that it had in days gone by. We have as good material here as there is any other part of the world, and we have a greater market for agricultural products than for any other kind of product. If we do not grow them here, they will have to be grown in some other part of the world, giving employment to men in other parts of the world, while we have a million and a half of men and women unemployed in this country, eating their very hearts out because of the conditions under which we are living.
I believe that agriculture is the most important, the basic industry of this nation. It is one of the greatest industries. It goes back into the dim ages of the past, and it will remain, although many years will expire before the time comes when the mineral wealth of this nation will have been exhausted. You cannot exhaust the possibilities of agriculture, of fruit growing and all the various aspects of rural life. We can make the amenities come from the rural areas by developing the latent characteristics of the people in those areas. Isaac Newton was the son of a farmer; Robert Burns, the great Scottish national poet, was a farm-worker himself, and the son of a small holder in Ayrshire. Dozens of instances might be quoted. But it was not possible to develop the spiritual side of the rural worker's life so long as life was one unending daily grind of monotony from four o'clock in the morning till eight o'clock at night, as it was at an earlier period of our history. Some improvement has been made, but much remains to be done. The children should remain longer at school, and should be taught a knowledge of those industries by which they are going to earn their living in the years to come, but not with a view to their going to some distant part of the world.
I stand almost alone in this House I am afraid, and am one of a very few men in this country, almost as a voice crying in the wilderness; but I am convinced, and I have given a considerable amount of time to the subject, that it is possible, on the soil and waters of this country, rightly used and wisely applied, with the machinery and the scientific knowledge available, to feed the vast majority of the population of this country so far as all materials are concerned, apart from tropical products. I am convinced of
that, and I believe that, if any person will look dispassionately into the question from that point of view, they will see that we do not need to discuss a great emigration problem. So long, however, as the land of this nation remains the private property of a comparatively small number of people, we can never get the full value from the soil, the rivers and the ocean. Develop our fisheries, develop our fruit, develop vegetables and flowers as they are being developed now in Cornwall and might be developed in many other parts of the land—fruit in the Vale of Evesham, the district of Holland, in certain parts of Scotland, and so on—and I am satisfied that we can solve the unemployment problem, and give a new lease of life to this old nation, of which we all ought to be proud, by resettling the people upon the land of their birth.

Mr. FENBY: The discussion so far has ranged over a long period of time. We began with William the Conqueror, and are going to finish with the Minister of Agriculture. I am by no means a pessimist concerning the agricultural industry and rural life of our land. London, Liverpool, Manchester, all the great urban areas will pass away very speedily, unless they are continually replenished from the rural areas of our land. I am an optimist with regard to agriculture and an improvement in our village life and industry, remembering that William the Conqueror has gone, and that the present Minister of Agriculture will be going also before very long. So far as this problem is concerned, nothing can be done unless you have imagination and initiative, and so far as the present Government are concerned—and I want to deal very gently with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture—his Department up to now has evinced very little evidence of imagination or initiative with regard to the agricultural question and the rural problem.
I notice that the hon. and gallant Gentleman who put down this Resolution does not throw compliments towards the Government which he supports. In his Resolution he asks the House to declare that it is of the opinion that the Government should do certain things. We are all agreed, and anyone who knows the agricultural problem knows that a great deal
can be done to improve the position of agriculture and rural life in this country —I do not mean by interference on the part of the Government, but by initiation on the part of the Government. No one has disappointed me more, in my short period in Parliament, than the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Debate. I do not at all agree with the speaker on the opposite side who said there was a dearth of skilled men in the countryside. It is not true. You will find as skilled men as ever you had in this good old country to-day in the countryside. That I know, at any rate. So far as hedgers are concerned, and other expert men dealing with ditches, I think you will find in the East Riding of Yorkshire the finest that there are in any part of the country. I listened with very great interest to the excellent speech of the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Mr. Wright). He said that you could not find men of the same fine physique to-day as you could many years ago. I do not agree with that. You have some very fine countrymen yet in the rural parts of good old England. Where the Minister of Agriculture has failed is in this: He has absolutely failed to give them that chance that they are waiting for, and that is the condemnation that comes upon him and the Government and the Department for which he is responsible.
Something has been said with regard to the low wages paid in the agricultural industry. Quite true. No one would attempt to justify that, but the significant fact is that in spite of the low wages the employé and his wife are saving money now. Please do not use that as an argument for not increasing the wage, but the frugality, the care, the sobriety and the abstinence with which these people work and live their life is a great compliment to them and they are fully entitled to any assistance the Government can give them. The right hon. Gentleman will forgive me mentioning a matter I have discussed with him outside this Chamber. He brought in a Bill which is now on the Statute Book with regard to the provision of small holdings but there is absolutely no drive behind that Measure on the part of the Department. The very first application that comes before his Department for creating a homestead—because the real demand in the rural areas for small holdings is
not so much for spare time land as for whole time occupation with a house and farmstead—proposed by a county authority endeavouring to encourage and assist him in applying his own Act to the countryside, for the countryside's benefit, a holding of 26¾ acres—all it wanted was a house. The only loss that was going to fall on the Treasury or the local authority was £60 a year. It was freehold land, the buildings were quite adequate, it was near an urban area with a market, and yet the Minister cuts it down and says, "No, you cannot build a house there. You must sell the 26¾ acres for small holdings and let it off field by field."

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Guinness): Is the hon. Member not aware that the local authority had thought out two different schemes and the alternative which was accepted was not our proposal but one which they themselves suggested?

Mr. FENBY: It is true that two proposals were made. But do not let the Minister ride off by putting the responsibility on the local authority.

Mr. GUINNESS: I do not ride off by putting the responsibility on the local authority. The responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture is to see that a reasonable and fair return is achieved for the Government contribution. I have not got the figures, but the cost of one of the schemes was inordinately high in proportion to the benefit to be received by one person, and the local authority had worked out another scheme which seemed to be far more beneficial and gave an advantage to, I do not know how many people, but anyhow a much better return, and it is not reasonable for the hon. Member on two occasions like this, when he knows the details cannot be dealt with, to bring it up as a reproach to the Department that we accepted one of two alternative schemes which seemed to us to give the greatest advantage on balance, and it is absolutely untrue to say we did that to sterilise or discourage the provision of small holdings.

Mr. FENBY: That is an excuse and not an explanation of the action of the Minister. I am not going to allow him to ride off by placing the responsibility for the decision of the Ministry on the
local authority. He know very well that what the authority wanted was the building of a house.

Mr. GUINNESS: Will the hon. Member take an occasion when we are discussing small holdings of raising this point? It is really not fair to the Department when we are discussing rural industry to bring up a matter of this kind without notice when it is impossible for the Minister to give the absolutely convincing answer which is in his possession.

Mr. FENBY: I shall be glad to do that because the more this point is rubbed in on this case with regard to the administration of the Ministry of Agriculture the less the Ministry will shine. I shall be glad to bring it up, and the more it is brought up the worse it will be for the Department. If you are going to encourage rural industry you have to get the rural areas more thickly populated than they are to-day.

Mr. GUINNESS: More people. That is the scheme we adopted.

10.0 p.m.

Mr. FENBY: No, the five people to whom those five fields were sold were already living there. If you wanted to bring another man, you wanted a house in which to put him. We wanted to build a house and the Minister says "No." If you are going to improve rural industry, if you are going to make it better for the people to live in the rural areas, you have to find more employment of a remunerative character, and one of the methods which lies already at the hand of the Minister is the provision of more small holdings. The hon. Member for Rutherglen (Mr. Wright) has been saying why do we not produce more food in our own country. I quite agree. That is what everyone is saying, and the report of the Ministry of Agriculture, which was discussed last Monday, said that wherever you have small holdings you have not only more people but more stock and you grow more food and produce more for the people to eat. Then what is the Minister doing in regard to drainage? His own report again says there are thousands of acres that really need drainage. We have an Act, passed last year, to deal with drainage, but it does very little. There is neither initiation nor imagination on the part of the Government with regard to the problem of drainage, which is so much required.
Then with regard to craftsmen, apart from skilled agriculturists, take the wheelwright or the blacksmith. Where they can get a living they are as highly skilled in industry as ever they were in the annals of this country. Why is it that you have so many of our rural forges and wheelwrights' shops closed? There are scores of smiths who are not making their own shoes, so far as the farriery side of the business is concerned. They are being made in Sheffield and Manchester and other places, and instead of buying a bar of iron and making his own, he buys them by the cwt. and fixes them when he gets them. In my own time I can remember, so far as agricultural machinery is concerned, there was a great deal more work for the village blacksmith's shop than there is to-day. That was a question of replenishing a part by forging it, by hard work. Instead of that, new machinery is so standardised that when a particular part of an agricultural machine wants repairing or replenishing you simply send it to Lincoln or somewhere else where it is made, and you get the particular part and it only needs bolting and putting on. All this is doing away with a good many of the smithies that you had in your rural areas. Then take the wheelwright. I quite agree that there are not so many wheelwrights required so far as carts are concerned in this country, but those that are required in many instances are made by the score in Leeds and other great urban areas. That has done away with the craftsmanship and the craftsmen in rural areas. But what I want to get at is this. What is required is the provision of power to the rural areas so far as agriculture and the other industries are concerned. I hope the Minister of Agriculture and his Department will urge that the provisions of the Electricity Act, which went through this House last year, shall not only be applied to urban areas but that it shall also be applied at the earliest possible moment in the rural areas. Who will say that we know all the advantages of electricity, or that we have been able to secure the full application of electricity to agriculture, and particularly with regard to rural crops? Who will say that we know anything about that? This is a particularly important matter, and yet here again I think the Govern-
ment stands self-condemned in regard to the appointments which were made only at the end of last year or the beginning of this year in regard to the Board which is to operate the Electricity Act. Not a single person appointed to that Board was specifically interested in agriculture, or was an expert in regard to agriculture or the rural side of the industry. I know the defence has been that my friend Lieut.-Colonel Willey represents agriculture. I would not say one word against him, but I would say a great many for him. He is a friend of mine, and a man who knows a great deal about the industries of this country, but no one can say that he is purely a representative of agriculture and of the rural industries of this country. Ha is interested, I know, but he is not a direct representative, and I want the Minister, if he desires to revive rural life, to improve the industries in rural areas, and to bring more employment in order that the smith, the carpenter, the ditcher, and all those men may have something more to do than they have to do now, to press, so far as his Department is concerned, not only for the Electricity Act to be applied to the urban areas, but that it should be applied to the rural areas as well.
My last point is this. I am not sure that the authorities that we have now, so far as the county administrative authorities are concerned, have sufficient power, or whether the authorities that we have have ample Dowers to deal with the requirements of the industry and with the problem which we are discussing to-day. I think the Minister might review the position. I know that under the 1910 Act, so far as the Agricultural War Executive 'Committees are concerned, their power has been taken away, and I think we need some authority in the county areas. But so far as the Minister's own Department is concerned, when he comes to the 1926 Smallholdings Act, there seems to be no drive from his own Department. The drive is absolutely gone. I stand here a friendly critic, I hope, of my right hon. Friend, and one who would like to help him because I am so much interested in the rural life of this country. My business and all my rural life is tied up with rural interests. But what I want to see developed is the gift of imagination and
initiative. The field is there, wide. The opportunity is great, and if, in this Debate I have said some things to displease the right hon. Gentleman, if they have roused him to a stronger sense of his responsibility, I am glad to have done so, and I could have said even stronger things. But it is a lamentable thing, and it is rather a serious reflection upon this House that says it is desirous of doing all it can for the rural side and for village industry, to keep up the rural craftsmanship, that we have to have a count in the middle of a Debate on an important subject such as this. I am glad to find that, from the Government-benches, in this Resolution, that there is evinced a keen disappointment so far as the Government and its work are concerned in dealing with the work of agricultural life, and I hope the Minister will show a little more diligence and imagination than he has hitherto shown on this subject.

Colonel Sir GEORGE COURTHOPE: The Debate to which we have listened this evening has been very interesting in more ways than one. First of all, I should like heartily to congratulate my hon. and gallant Friends who moved and seconded this Resolution upon the very interesting and excellent speeches they made. They were followed by an equally interesting but a very different speech from the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Mr. Wright). Until he got to his peroration, I thought he was making a very admirable speech in favour of extending the principle of the Safeguarding of Industries or, if you like, of Protection. But if you are to consider this matter from the broad point of view of agricultural employment and the rural population you cannot get away from the facts upon which he insisted, that you must have a better wage, and that to get that better wage you have got to have better and more stable prices. Sooner or later this House and the country have got to realise that essential fact and tackle that problem. The country has got to decide whether it wants to maintain and increase its rural poulation, and whether it wants to maintain and increase the proportion of our essential foodstuffs that are produced at home. If it does, it has got to take the necessary steps—I shall not attempt to define them in the short time at my disposal—to ensure improved and
more stable prices than modern conditions provide, because without those prices you cannot get an improved wage, and without an improved wage we shall not, as the hon. Member opposite said, quite truly, maintain the rural population that all parties believe to be important to the nation.
But I do not wish, in the few minutes that are available to me, to go into this difficult, thorny, and very large question. I want to say a word or two about a rather narrower point, because I think there is a great deal that can be done for rural industry through this great question of agricultural employment and the production of foodstuffs at home. Let me approach the subject from the point of view mentioned by the last speaker; the point of view of small holdings. We want to see small holdings increase and small holdings successful, but I think most of us who have been in intimate touch with small holdings recognise what I believe to be a fact that if the small holdings are to be successful, except possibly in one or two highly favoured districts, those small holdings must be accompanied by the: opportunity for wage-earning on the part of the smallholder for a part, at least, of the year. The most successful holdings in the country to-day are the holdings that are being set up by the Forestry Commission in connection with the new forest plantations that are being made under their policy.
The Forestry Commission set up a certain number of holdings for every thousand acres of woodlands that they plant, and they guarantee the occupiers of those holdings a certain minimum number of days wages during the year, particularly during the winter months. That wage, plus the occupation and cultivation of their holdings, enables them to make their occupation and livelihood' a success. That principle ought to be extended to many local industries other than forestry. It might quite likely, I think it might, adapt itself to the sugar beet industry when the sugar beet industry is thoroughly established in certain districts. There are certain periods of the year when additional labour is required on the farms where the sugar beet is grown, and there are certain period of the year, relatively short, when additional skilled labour is required in the factories where the beet is converted into sugar, and there is a
considerable period of time during the year when that particular industry does not require so much labour either for the cultivation of the sugar beet or the manufacture of the beet sugar. It is possible that this question of small holdings may link itself up, or be linked up, with that industry, but I do not think the Minister can well he in a position to embark on a policy of that kind, although I think he could do rather more than, as far as I am aware, is being done at present.
Something might be done to encourage certain village handicrafts, as has been done in one particular county. The County of Kent is a shining example in the encouragement of skilled handicraft among those village industries which are tending to die out. The hon. Member for East Bradford (Mr. Fenby) mentioned the smith. The village smith is, for the reasons which he has stated, gradually disappearing. The coming of the motor car and the modern agricultural machine leads to the replacement of broken parts by a rapidly purchased spare. There are not so many horses to shoe, and the shoes are ready made. The smith is finding and will find little to do, unless he is encouraged and helped to find a market for highly-skilled work, which will always sell if it is well done, and for which the hereditary smith of this country, whose trade passes from father to son for many generations, is well fitted to carry out. That is one example and there are others.
It would be well worth while the Ministry considering whether they cannot establish, by competition, or some method of that kind, a local industry in English furniture. It is far too long since in this country we developed a new style and character of furniture. We are too prone to be content with taking up the furniture of 100 or 150 years ago, and it is quite time we developed a new style. I do not mean furniture which is reproduced in vast quantities by machinery. I mean furniture made by hand, by skilled local craftsmen and from local timber. We grow the best timber for this purpose; and I hope the Minister of Agriculture will consider whether an impetus cannot be given to some such movement as this, in addition to the more obvious village industries of the
basket maker and hurdle maker, and the construction of toys. All these industries are admirably adapted for village life. Their raw material is produced now, and will be produced in still larger quantities as the forestry policy develops, at their own doors. These are industries which should be encouraged, because they will enable small holdings and allotments to be a success and will help to maintain, to some extent, the prosperity of our village life.
There is much more that I should like to have said but time is getting late, and in conclusion I only wish to refer to a subject which was mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member who moved the Motion—namely, the movement for the preservation of the countryside, the encouragement of local authorities and others concerned to prevent the destruction of some of the most beautiful parts of this country by the uncontrolled spread of hideous buildings along the frontage of our great roads. This can be effectively done by the creation of popular opinion, and popular opinion can best be helped in this matter by the opinion of this House. A great deal can be done to save the beauties of the countryside not only by checking the ribald development which is now going on but by giving opportunities for the development of residential houses in suitable areas and by giving special opportunities, through the Electricity Commissioners or other bodies, for the development, again in suitable areas, of local industries and factories which will help the rural population. I hope that all parties will combine—it would be a great pity if it became a party question —to encourage a movement which will do so much to preserve the best features of the countryside, which we all alike love so well.

Mr. NOEL BUXTON: This Debate has oscillated between the general interest of the village in the prosperity of agriculture and the special interests to which the hon. and gallant Member has called attention in his Motion. The subject covers both fields, and I agree with the hon. Member behind me that the real question, even in the interest of these industries alone, is how to promote the prosperity of rural industries in general in those conditions under which the maximum success of the industries will alone
be secured. The particular subject raised by the two hon. Members this evening seems to me as important as any that could be raised in this House and to be dealing with a matter which is absolutely vital for national welfare. I am very glad that they have called attention to an aspect of agriculture which is different from that on which we not infrequently dwell in agricultural Debates. You might, I suggest, call it the social aspect of agriculture, the part of the question which is represented by the point of view of the villager. It is most interesting and appropriate, I think, that we should look at the matter for this one occasion from the point of view of the villager, which, after all, is the real test of the success of our agricultural policy. I do not wish to overstate the urgency of the problem in this aspect, that, namely, of the hardship in which the worker lives. In order not to overstate the distressful outlook of the farm worker in most of our villages let me just quote an authority who will certainly be accepted on the other side of the House. Lord Ernie, speaking of the agricultural workers, says:
Most are poorly paid, precariously employed and poorly housed. Among all poverty is chronic; and though destitution is certainly rare, dread of it is seldom absent. All the employing classes have moved upwards in wealth, in education, in tastes, in habits, in their standard of living. Except in education the employed alone have stood comparatively still. The sense of social inferiority thus fostered has impressed the labourer with a feeling that he is not regarded as a member of the community, but only as its helot.
Another quotation which will carry equal weight with hon. Members opposite is from Lord Bledisloe:
There is no country where the really competent agricultural worker has a poorer outlook than in England.
I do not want to labour that point. We all know that the village worker lives in too many cases under a sword of Damocles. His life is not secure and he cannot express himself freely, or be active in causes and movements that would naturally interest him. We know that the men find it extremely difficult to combine in a union, and where they do combine, as in Norfolk and Suffolk, it is very often because in the villages there you find certain men of slight independence. I am thinking of a man who was a fish curer.
He was the only man who could be got to be the secretary of the local branch of the union. It is not safe and the whole position is insecure. When we try to think of a remedy for this state of things —we are not at the moment dealing with the greater aspects of agricultural reform —we realise that there is a great deal that the Minister should envisage in his scheme of village amelioration. Not only is his Ministry concerned, but also the Ministries of Health and of Labour and of Education, and you might say the Home Office in regard to public house reform; and the Post Office is very closely concerned, and certainly the British Broadcasting Corporation and other Government Departments are actively concerned now. It is a very vast field, and in the moment or two that I have available I would like to suggest one or two of the ways in which more might be done.
If I attempted to select the most urgent call for new kinds of activity not specially concerned with agriculture in the strict sense, I would recall to the House that there is a Department concerning itself in some degree with industries and with village welfare. The Development Commission is making grants which filter down to industries and village halls and certain other things, but on a small scale. I suggest to the Minister that there should be a more definitely organised department of rural welfare. If there were a regular welfare department, it would help, if only indirectly, in rousing the public to some interest in the subject. Immense progress was made in Ireland through the Congested Districts Board, and I do not see why in this country we should not do a good deal on the same lines by an intensive rousing of interest in the various concerns of the village. Certainly Ireland never needed such help in its village life and in its rural life more than we need it in our villages here. Although our people are better off, there is just as much feeling for encouragement of local effort. Is it not the function of the Ministry to stimulate village reform in the first place by stimulating private effort? The Ministry does few things more profitable for the money which it costs than to subsidise women's institutes. Some of my hon. Friends may doubt whether in every case the village institute is a perfectly impartial body, but it is open to the mem-
bers to make it what they like, and there are few things more profitable than the subsidising of village institutes and of village clubs.
It seems a great pity that the subsidy to the Village Clubs Association came to an end. Under its influence there came to be 450 clubs and the institutes now number 3,400 with over 200,000 members, and very great effects have resulted. Then you have the Rural Community Councils. Where they exist they are doing magnificent work. They study and advise; they are already used to a small extent as a channel of assistance by the Ministry or the Development Commission in the founding of village halls. They arc doing something as in Cambridgeshire, for the founding of industries which will not, certainly in some cases, prove to be short-lived. I suppose many of us have experience of industries in which we have been concerned coming to an end all too soon, but on a basis of high organisation such as that of the Rural Community Councils, the subsidies seam to be well worth while. There is a hopeful feature on which the Minister can work. Country life is not now characterised by the dullness and unattractiveness which many-people thought it had a few years ago. If economic conditions are not too bad people are much more willing to stay in the country than they were.
The other function which such a Department might have would be to stimulate the utilisation of local government machinery. The county councils are assisted by the Ministry to send lecturers on many subjects through the counry, but they are not using their powers fully. Ever so many powers of local bodies are neglected. Take only the matter of access to land. I know many villages where there is really an economic handicap owing to the failure to acquire allotments even in these days. Housing, of course, is a great field of local government not at all adequately occupied by the work of the rural district councils, and among the things that local government has here and there dealt with, but not at all generally as it ought, are playgrounds, village halls, water supplies, drainage, lighting, footpaths, postal arrangements, libraries, bathing places, and the disposal of rubbish. These form not at all an unimportant element in village life which has got to be dealt with, and all these
things, it seems to me, could come under the influence of a Welfare Department avowedly aimed at stimulation.
Apart from these things, the fundamental causes, in the view of us on these benches, need to be dealt with in a more drastic way. The control of the land, and the wage, and education are essential, of course, to reform, but in the particular sphere that the hon. and gallant Member has raised this evening, it seems to me that, if we cannot expect from the present Government a drastic dealing with agricultural interests such as would appeal to us on these benches, there is a very great deal that the Minister might do—and I hope that all parties would agree in supporting him if he could see his way to do it—by the promotion of a special Village Welfare Department in the Ministry.

Mr. GUINNESS: I quite agree with the right hon. Member for Northern Norfolk (Mr. Buxton) that the improvement and the maintenance of our village life depend on social conditions, on wages. on housing, on education. The problem nowadays is that rural life remains in great contrast to urban development and we have to find some way of preventing it being crushed by the competition of this very strong organisation, and from losing its most desirable recruits owing to the temptations which town life offers. The hon. and gallant Member for Yeovil (Major G. Davies) devoted, if I may say so, a most thoughtful and fertile speech chiefly to the special interests of the agricultural industry as contrasted to the other subordinate rural crafts and occupations, and he drew attention to the present difficulty from the lack of young skilled men in agriculture and the difficulty in finding suitable recruits. The problem of the farmer to-day is largely due to the fact that after the disastrous series of years, with prices steadily falling, through which he has passed, he now finds himself in a position where his costs too often are above his receipts. It is necessary for the farmer to make his labour cheaper, not in wages, but in greater efficiency. He can help his labour with up-to-date machinery, but he can get perhaps even more by making that labour more simple in its methods. In this movement the farmer must clearly play the chief part, and there is no doubt that a great deal can be done to speed up the
output of labour on the farms, if the workers are shown the proper manual processes. A good deal of evidence is to be found nowadays that employers, perhaps, are not quite so efficient, or not so interested, in the proper development of manual processes as before, when machinery had not been developed in the same way, and where the necessity of manual labour being more efficient was more fully brought to their notice.
The hon. and gallant Member for Yeovil suggested that we might gain advantage by applying a system of apprenticeship to agricultural trades. There is no doubt that that system has worked with advantage in the case of training farmers. We all know how many farmers take pupils, and how it is quite possible to work out what is, in effect, an apprenticeship system for that object; but I do not quite agree with him in his suggestion that it could easily apply to the wage earner. First of all, you have got the difficulty of the Wages Act, and you have also this consideration, that the farmer to-day finds difficulty in getting young men to train in agriculture. He is quite willing to pay for efficient labour, and perfectly willing to give that labour an opportunity of learning, and it does not seem necessary in the case of agriculture that premiums should be given to help the farmer to employ recruits whom he is quite willing to take on and pay in the ordinary way.
I think that we can better deal with this problem of recruiting and secure the necessary supply if we can make the life more attractive by reasonable wages, by increasing the prospects of advancement, by means of small holdings and cottage holdings and by developing the various voluntary agencies. The Ministry can, of course, do a good deal in organising those sides of training which the individual cannot well provide. This duty begins in the school. We have to make the young realise the value of the opportunities of country life. That is the object of what is known as rural bias in education, to adapt the schools and the children to the special needs and opportunities of rural life. Rural bias is quite separate from any kind of vocational training. It is a matter of linking the teaching in the elementary schools with country surroundings, to open the eyes and ears of the
children to country life, and, of course, it depends for its success on the particular aptitude of the teachers. The Board of Education have set up a Committee under the Chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Lamb) which is exploring this problem among other subjects, and I hope we shall be able to advance this very important object.
When children leave school they can be encouraged to remain on the land by rural continuation classes, and an interdepartmental Committee of the Ministries of Agriculture and Education has recently been exploring this matter, and a circular has been sent to the local education authorities urging them to organise educational facilities for the gap between leaving school and the age of 16, when boys and girls can take special training in farm institutes and other centres. These continuation classes deal with rural science, carpentry, manual processes, dairying, poultry keeping, horticulture, and, in the case of girls, domestic economy also. The House knows what is being done at the farm institutes, but side by side with them, to deal with boys of the same age, we have instruction being given in manual processes by means of travelling teachers. These processes include instruction in hedging, ditching, ploughing, thatching, sheep-shearing, basket-making and milking.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: How many of these travelling teachers are there?

Mr. GUINNESS: We have 38 County education authorities taking part in the movement, there are 230 courses, and we do all we can, by contributing two-thirds of the cost, to make it possible for the rest of the County education authorities to join in the movement. The hon. and gallant Member for Newbury (Brigadier-General Clifton Brown) dealt, in the very interesting speech in which he opened the Debate, with the other side of rural life and occupations, with industries which exist in our villages independent of agriculture. He truly pointed out that the real problem which confronts these industries is the great problem of markets. Owing to large-scale production and distribution in this country, these local industries have lost their old customers, and they have to seek their sales much further afield than under more primitive conditions.
There are three bodies that are doing a great deal to help on this movement. There is the Rural Industries Bureau, the National Federation of Women's Institutes and the National Council of Social Services. These bodies have all been started with some assistance from outside —in the case of the Rural Industries Bureau and the National Federation of Women's Institutes, with grants from the Development Commission, and in the case of the National Council of Social Services with grants from the Carnegie trustees—but it is most encouraging to find that they are very nearly self-supporting and will shortly, I think, become quite independent of any Government assistance. The Rural Industries Bureau is now receiving a grant of about £4,400 a year and they act as an intelligence service for these rural industries. They give advice, they give training, they issue leaflets and a quarterly journal and they keep a register of craftsmen who are working in these scattered industries so as to put them in touch with their markets. The work of the National Federation of Women's Institutes is probably more in the public eye and therefore better known. There are now 3,800 of these institutes within the Federation. They do very good work in teaching and developing handicrafts, and they have trained 656 teachers who go out as missionaries to start new sides of rural developments. The National Federation is now self-supporting, though originally they were receiving about £10,000 from the Development Fund.
The National Council of Social Services, which is under the Presidency of Mr. Speaker, is a body which co-ordinates the work and prevents overlapping on the part of these other organisations. The Development Commission and the Ministry of Agriculture are represented, on the Council which assists in setting up the Rural Community Councils, organised on a county basis. They have now started a new step in the form of village Community Councils. They are erecting and enlarging village halls and doing very much to improve the amenities of village life quite apart from their work in promoting rural industries. It has been suggested to-night that opportunity should be taken by offering exhibitions to help the public to realise the importance of this work. A good deal
is done already. Hon. Members will have seen the most interesting and beautiful exhibits at some of our agricultural shows, which give evidence that the rural worker is a real craftsman who only needs an assured market to turn out many artistic and useful articles. Undoubtedly the industries which used to exist in our villages have too often decayed, but with the efficient organisations which are now growing up to revitalise them I am confident they will grow from strength to strength, and add prosperity and a new interest to country life.
I am very glad that my hon. and gallant Friend has raised this question in the House because I think it is necessary that we should apply our minds to this matter. During the Debate to-night most valuable suggestions have been made as to organisation within the Department, and so forth, which I will very carefully consider. I realise that the health of the rural community is absolutely vital to our national prosperity, and to secure this health we must ensure the recruitment of the main industry of agriculture, and the continuance of its subordinate industries. The rural population is absolutely necessary to our national health and physique, and will be more necessary to future generations for the food of the country when foreign countries develop their production and manufactures, and are perhaps not so ready as they are to-day to take our manufactured articles, and send us their food in exchange. I did not need this Debate this evening to be convinced that recruitment for our basic industry of agriculture, and the maintenance and development of our rural craftmanship is absolutely necessary for the prosperity of our rural life, and for the interests of the nation at large.

Resolved,
That this House is of opinion that the Government should do all in its power to foster the development of village life and industries, and to promote good craftsmanship in agriculture.

ELECTRICITY (SUPPLY) ACTS.

Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Elec-
tricity (Supply) Acts. 1882 to 1926, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the urban district of Rothbury and parts of the rural districts of Alnwick and Rothbury, in the county of Northumberland, which was presented on the 17th day of February, 1927, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1926, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the urban district of East Dereham, in the county of Norfolk, which was presented on the"24th day of February, 1927, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1926, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act. 1919, in respect of the urban district of Seaham Harbour and the parish of Seaham, in the rural district of Easington, in the county of Durham, which was presented on the 15th day of February, 1927, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1926, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under
the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the borough of Rye, the urban district of Battle, the rural districts of Hastings, Rye, and Battle, and the parish of Ninfield, in the rural district of Hailsham, all in the administrative county of East Sussex, which was presented on the 15th day of February, 1927, be approved."— [Colonel Ashley.]

CONSOLIDATION BILLS.

Ordered,
That Colonel England be discharged from the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

Ordered,
That Mr. Ernest Evans be added to the Committee."—[Colonel Gibbs.]

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

ADJOURNMENT.

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Commander Eyres Monsell.]

Adjourned accordingly at Three Minutes after Eleven o'clock.